(Credit: Netflix)

If you have been anywhere near the internet lately, you already know Diddy has become a walking meme folder. People took one look at those leaked videos and the allegations and realised what happens to a celebrity when they hit the downfall mode. Netflix clearly saw the same energy because The Reckoning feels like a four-episode response to every joke and every clip circulating online that made you question your reality.

The Reckoning opens with the glamorous life Diddy wanted everyone to see. Then it switches gears so fast you almost feel cheated for ever buying into the myth. Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson saw the culture shifting and decided to grab the opportunity before the internet did. Alexandria Stapleton then builds a documentary that is both an investigation and a cultural therapy.

Watching this as someone who grew up with memes and media literacy is wild. You are trained to question everything, yet even then, the scale of what was happening behind closed doors is staggering. Diddy always filmed himself like he was his own reality show crew and accidentally provided the receipts that now sit inside this documentary.

Diddy built an empire and the industry kept things quiet

The first episode tries to remind you that Sean Combs really did come from ambition and hustle. Harlem childhood, uptown records. Bad Boy Entertainment. Biggie, Mary J. Blige. The hits are stacked so high you momentarily forget you are watching a documentary about a man currently serving time and appealing a conviction.

But then there happens the shift of tone. You see former employees, artists, friends, and insiders begin describing a world where influence functioned like a shield. Fame wasn’t just currency for Diddy; it was his armour. People doubted their own instincts because the brand was louder than the truth. And when Cassie Ventura filed her lawsuit in 2023, the internet dropped everything and asked the only question that mattered: were we seeing the real guy or just his performance?

The footage he filmed himself… now used to expose him

The wildest part of this documentary? The intimate footage from the six days before Diddy’s arrest. He knew the cameras were rolling, of course, he did. Filming was practically his personality, but the irony is unreal. The man obsessed with documenting himself accidentally created a pre-arrest scrapbook that now sits in a Netflix series about his fall.

Then come the interviews. Not vague commentary. Actual people with names, careers, memories, and years of emotional residue. Bad Boy co-founder Kirk Burrowes. Artists like Aubrey O’Day and Kalenna Harper. Former assistants and former law enforcement – you have your jurors and alleged victims. Individuals who once thought they were part of something historic now speak like they are finally breathing freely.

The documentary also makes it clear who refused to participate. But not like in a dramatic way. It leaves it to the audience to draw its own conclusions. Fear, distance, exhaustion… whatever the reason, their silence carries its own message.

Across four episodes, the series takes us through the City College tragedy, the Bad Boy vs Death Row tensions, Biggie’s murder, allegations from partners and artists, and a federal investigation that slowly closed in while Diddy still behaved like he was untouchable.

When the docuseries finally ends, you are left with a different question than the one you started with. You don’t think about how he did it, but about how the industry let him get along with it.

The Reckoning does not hand you neat answers. What it gives you instead is a clear message: a glossy public image can hide a lot. If anything, this documentary proves one thing that the era of unbreakable celebrity myths is over. And Diddy was the test case.