• Jamie Foxx pokes fun at Sean "Diddy" Combs in his new comedy special, "What Had Happened Was."
• "The internet said that Puffy tried to kill me," he says. "I know what you're thinking. 'Did he?'"
• "Hell naw," Foxx continues. "I left them parties early. I was out by 9."

In his new comedy special, Jamie Foxx makes time amid emotional revelations about his recent health scare and spot-on celebrity impressions to poke fun at Sean "Diddy" Combs, who's awaiting trial in jail on three felony charges including sex trafficking.

In the opening minutes of "What Had Happened Was," which premiered Tuesday on Netflix, Foxx jokes about the conspiracy theories that surrounded his 2023 hospitalization and subsequent withdrawal from the public eye. (These included theories that he was secretly dead and others that he'd been cloned.)

In the special, Foxx reveals that he suffered a stroke while he was filming a Netflix movie in Atlanta.

"Atlanta saved my life. The internet was trying to kill me, though. The internet said that Puffy tried to kill me," Foxx says, referring to the stage name Combs used in the '90s. "That's what the internet was saying. I know what you're thinking. 'Did he?'"

Foxx waits a beat for laughter and then assures the crowd that he's not connected to Combs' legal troubles.

"Hell naw, n****. I left them parties early. I was out by 9," Foxx says. "'Something don't look right, n****. It's slippery in here, n****."

Throughout his career as a rapper and founder of Bad Boy Records, Combs was famous for throwing lavish events with star-studded guest lists, including annual white parties in the Hamptons.

Back in 2018, Foxx told Stephen Colbert that he "started hanging out with Puff back in the day" and he would "watch him throw parties." Foxx also joked that Combs showed up to one of his own parties with the FBI in tow.

"Puff was always sort of dangerous," Foxx said, "so he had all kinds of people following him."

In recent months, Combs has been sued by multiple people for sexual assault and rape, many of whom alleged they were attacked at these parties. Other celebrities have been named as co-defendants in various lawsuits, most recently Jay-Z.

Both Combs and Jay-Z have denied all allegations.

In September, Combs was arrested and indicted on racketeering and sex-trafficking charges by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Prosecutors allege Combs orchestrated sexual performances called "Freak Offs," described in his indictment as "elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded."

Combs has pleaded not guilty to the indictment, and his lawyers have said he will fight the charges at a trial scheduled to begin May 5.

There's been no suggestion from prosecutors that other celebrities will be charged in the case, though US Attorney Damian Williams said in response to a question from Business Insider that "nothing is off the table."

Later in the comedy special, Foxx discusses his post-stroke recovery and brushes with death, telling the audience that he didn't walk toward the clichéd light — but he did see a tunnel.

"It was hot in that tunnel. I thought, shit, have I gone to the wrong place?" he jokes. "I looked at the end of the tunnel and I thought I saw the devil saying, 'Come on.' Or was that Puffy?"

He then cracks a joke about the March raids on Combs' Florida and California mansions, during which law enforcement said they seized "various Freak Off supplies" that included narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant.

"If that was Puffy he had a flaming bottle of Johnson and… no, I'm just kidding," Foxx said.

A rep for Combs did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

• Jay-Z was named in an amended complaint to a lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs, filed in October.
• The filing accuses Jay-Z and Combs of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000.
• Experts said that Jay-Z's response could have been stronger if it included an explicit denial of the claims.

Jay-Z's response to the rape accusations against him is missing something, according to one crisis-PR expert.

The "99 Problems" singer — whose real name is Shawn Carter — was accused in a civil lawsuit Sunday of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party alongside Sean "Diddy" Combs in 2000.

Carter responded to the "heinous" allegations hours later in a statement posted on his company Roc Nation's X account, calling the accuser's attorney, Tony Buzzbee, "deplorable" and saying he engaged in "a blackmail attempt."

"Whoever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?" the statement reads, in part. "These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case."

Still, the statement doesn't include "a flat unmistakable denial that he'd ever engaged in behavior like that in this case or otherwise," said Evan Nierman, the CEO of crisis-PR firm Red Banyan.

"I think Jay-Z was strong in pointing out the heinous nature of the crimes and that he views them as unconscionable," Nierman said. "But I would've liked to have seen a little bit more of a flat denial."

The allegations against Carter stem from one of the slew of civil sexual assault lawsuits filed against Combs, who's in a Brooklyn jail while awaiting trial on separate criminal sex trafficking charges. Combs has denied the accusations against him.

In the original lawsuit, filed in October, the anonymous Jane Doe plaintiff from Alabama accused Combs of raping her at a party in New York City as two other unnamed celebrities watched. The stars were only identified in the civil lawsuit as "Celebrity A" and "Celebrity B."

The updated lawsuit filed Sunday identifies Carter as "Celebrity A."

The other celebrity was described as a "female" but has otherwise not been identified in court documents.

Attorneys for Carter and Combs did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. A day after Carter's statement was published, his lawyer, Alex Spiro, more forcefully denied the allegations in a court filing.

"For the avoidance of doubt, Mr. Carter is entirely innocent," he wrote. "This is a shakedown."

A PR expert says Jay-Z's statement had 'bravado'

In his social media statement, Carter took aim at Buzbee, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiff, and said that his lawyer "received a blackmail attempt" to pressure him into settling out of court. He has separately filed an extortion lawsuit against Buzzbee.

Buzbee told Business Insider that he sent a letter to Carter requesting that Carter and the plaintiff mediate before Sunday's filing.

The amended complaint said Carter responded to the letter by filing a lawsuit and "orchestrating a conspiracy of harassment, bullying, and intimidation" to silence the accuser from naming him.

Camron Dowlatshahi, a partner at Los Angeles-based Mills Sadat Dowlat LLP, told Business Insider that the back-and-forth negotiations referenced by Carter are typical, "especially in a case involving a high-profile individual."

What caught peoples' attention was the more casual tone of Jay-Z's statement, which includes informally styled words in all caps and a sentence that ends with two exclamation points.

"He infused it with the kind of bravado that he's known for," Nierman told Business Insider. By reiterating his rough upbringing — "I'm a young man who made it out of the project of Brooklyn" — Nierman added that he's "saying, 'You misjudged me by trying to play with me the way you deal with other people.'"

Despite the informal tone, Dowlatshahi said it's highly likely that the statement was crafted with lawyers and publicists.

"I thought it was unorthodox but important to come from him," Dowlatshahi told Business Insider. "It personalizes everything that he's going through instead of being defensive."

Carter's statement said his accuser's lawyer should "file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!!" Still, only prosecutors representing the government, not individual accusers, can file criminal indictments.

Damian Williams, the US Attorney overseeing the criminal case against Combs in Manhattan, told Business Insider in October that the "investigation is very active and ongoing" when asked whether additional people would be charged.

Nierman and Dowlatshahi said it was nonetheless smart for Carter to point out that he was not charged with a crime.

"Something involving essentially a rape of a 13-year-old is not something that you have an afterthought about and amend your complaint about," Dowlatshahi said. "It's something that's at the forefront of a case, and typically a criminal case."

Experts don't think the allegations will tarnish Jay-Z's reputation if it's an isolated incident

Nierman and Dowlatshahi think Jay-Z is too rich and powerful for his reputation to ultimately be damaged by the suit.

He's "too big to cancel, and his brand is too strong to be destroyed by a civil lawsuit," Nierman said.

Dowlatshahi agreed. "Right now, this is a pretty contained isolated thing."

If more allegations against Carter surface or he faces criminal charges, indictments, or arrests, it could be career-ending.

"This is a civil lawsuit being filed by an attorney who's been very aggressive about his demand letters and going after celebs in the interest of securing financial settlements for his client," Nierman said. "So I don't see this as creating a permanent stain on Jay-Z's brand."

Nierman and Dowlatshahi said that Carter's mention of the allegations' impact on conversations with his kids, whom he shares with Beyoncé, also humanized him outside his celebrity persona.

Nierman said that Carter made his response "personal" by directly questioning Buzbee's integrity and values. "When you come out of the gates with such a strong statement like what Jay-Z made, and you make it so personal, both in his defense of himself and his attack on his accuser, he's already set," Nierman said. "It's going to be very hard to come back from that. So I expect him to be extremely aggressive in defending his reputation."

On Monday, Carter's lawyer filed a flurry of motions in federal court to dismiss the case or disclose the accuser's identity in the civil lawsuit.

"These claims are not about justice for victims. Nor are they about giving victims of sexual violence a voice," Carter's attorney Alex Spiro wrote in a filing. "Instead, they are merely the next chapter in Attorney Buzbee's sprawling extortion saga — a saga whose aim is base and measured in dollars."

Spiro didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Dowlatshahi said this is a common next step as Carter's team explores every possible option to defeat the claims. In Nierman's view, the aggressive strategy is working in the court of public opinion.

"Jay-Z is not going to be defined by these allegations," Nierman said. "I don't think that this is even going to be a footnote to his obituary."