A judge ordered Sean Combs to pay NBCUniversal $477,700.50 in attorneys' fees over his dismissed documentary lawsuit.

A fee award is a civil money judgment. It is not a criminal case and adds no prison time. TMZ reported the amount is less than half of what NBCUniversal requested because the judge found some of the billing excessive, and Combs's spokesman framed the cut as a partial win. The ruling that his defamation claims failed was already on the books.

TMZ reported Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, citing court documents it obtained, that a judge ordered Sean "Diddy" Combs to pay NBCUniversal $477,700.50 in attorneys' fees after the company successfully defended itself against his lawsuit over the Peacock documentary "Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy." TMZ reported NBCUniversal had asked for $990,292 to cover its legal bill, and that the judge reduced the request because, although the hourly rates for the company's experienced attorneys were reasonable, some of the bills were excessive. A fee order sets what the losing side owes. It does not reopen the lawsuit.

AllHipHop reported in August 2026 that NBCUniversal, Peacock, and Ample Entertainment first requested $927,448 and then added $62,844 for work answering Combs's objections to the fee application. AllHipHop reported the companies argued that New York's anti-SLAPP law requires Combs to cover reasonable legal costs because his suit targeted speech on matters of public interest, and that a judge dismissed every claim in the $100 million defamation suit in April 2026 after finding the documentary presented competing viewpoints. As AllHipHop described the filings, Combs did not dispute that the companies were entitled to fees and instead argued they used more experienced lawyers and more hours than the case required. The fight was over the amount, not over whether fees were owed.

Combs's spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, told TMZ, "Yes, Sean was ordered to pay approximately $478,000 in attorneys' fees, but that is only half the story. NBCUniversal sought nearly $1 million, and the Court found substantial portions of its billing excessive and unreasonable, cutting the request by more than $512,000." Engelmayer added that the arguments challenging those bills were made by the same firm that recently withdrew from representing Combs amid its own billing dispute with him, TMZ reported. Page Six reported in September 2026 that Combs's lawyers had moved to drop him as a client in the defamation case.

Combs is serving a federal prison sentence at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey after his 2025 conviction on two Mann Act counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. TMZ reported he is scheduled to be released in early 2028 and was recently moved to a special housing unit after reports about his lifestyle at Fort Dix. The fee order is a civil judgment separate from that criminal sentence. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.