How 50 Cent’s feud with Diddy fueled the no. 1 show on Netflix

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For two years, Curtis “50 Cent" Jackson oversaw work on a documentary about a hip-hop rival he has personally trolled on the internet for even longer. His efforts paid off: “Sean Combs: The Reckoning," a four-part series executive-produced by Jackson, has been perched at No.

1 on Netflix as the most-watched series in the U.S. and multiple other territories. It had 22 million total views in its opening weekend alone, Netflix says.

After an eight-week trial, Sean “Diddy" Combs was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges but convicted for prostitution offenses and sentenced in October to just over four years in prison. Despite the marathon spectacle of the case, viewers have flocked to the documentary to learn more about the disgraced mogul. They’re devouring not just the salacious details in “The Reckoning" but also its wider framing of hip-hop history, including details about the inner workings of Combs’s Bad Boy record label and his role in the fatal feud between Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.

Combs has threatened to sue Netflix over the documentary, claiming key footage in it was stolen from him, and that the project was skewed by animosity Jackson has against him. Netflix defended the release, which was directed by Alexandria Stapleton, whose previous documentaries include a film about Reggie Jackson. Meanwhile the project’s ringleader has been basking in the new documentary’s success and controversy—a combo Jackson has embraced ever since he emerged as one of music’s great antagonists with the 2003 debut album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’." “It doesn’t come out like this without me," Jackson says, referring to his standing in the rap world (which helped