It’s 2004 and on a Saturday night in Miami, jet-set East Coast power players are packed into a star-studded party thrown by hip-hop’s reigning mogul, Sean “Diddy” Combs, at a private mansion.

The music is thumping, the mostly white-clad crowd is glistening and the room is dotted with very famous faces. There’s Owen Wilson, chatting with pre-meltdown Charlie Sheen. Diana Ross, radiant in a white gown, sweeps past and grabs Will Smith by the shoulder to say hello. And at the center of it all is Puff Daddy — a.k.a. P. Diddy, a.k.a. Mr. Combs — basking in the glow of his own empire, having conquered music, fashion and media before the age of 40.

Soon the crowd is watching him, transfixed, as the modern icon stands beside the most jaw-dropping element of his already over-the-top bash: a nude woman (wearing a strategically placed leaf) covered in sushi, laid out on a table for guests to nibble from. Cameras flash as Combs addresses the crowd, presiding over the scene like a master of ceremonies — or something else entirely.

Cut to 2024. Two decades later, as Combs’ legal troubles mount, old photos from that night — including several where he appears to be lording over the sushi display — made their way online and quickly took on a new, much darker meaning. In the eyes of a certain internet fringe, those images weren’t just retro decadence — they were evidence. Of a ritual. Of a live human sacrifice.

“Eat-a-woman adreno vibes. SPIRIT COOKING. ABROMAVIC [sic] style. Diddy was a high witch,” read one viral tweet, suggesting the party wasn’t a celebration but a Satanic rite staged by a “high-level wizard” of the entertainment elite.

This is your brain on QAnon.

It sounds nuts — and it is — but that’s the whole point. As Combs became the center of one of the biggest entertainment scandals in years, conspiracy theorists seized on the moment and ran wild. Long before his trial even began, the QAnon crowd had already twisted the narrative: if he was convicted, it would signal the cabal’s collapse; if he wasn’t, it would prove just how deep the cover-up goes. Suddenly, a decades-old sushi stunt was reimagined as an actual human sacrifice, and Diddy was no longer just a music mogul battling real-life allegations disturbing enough on their own — he was the latest symbol of Hollywood’s alleged Satanic cabal.

For an indeterminate number of the 20 percent of American adults who believe in some aspect of the QAnon delusion, those resurfaced party photos didn’t just add color to the Diddy saga — they rewrote the narrative entirely. The sushi table wasn’t catering; it was a ceremony. Combs wasn’t a flashy host; he was a high priest of the occult.

QAnon, which began in 2017 but draws on centuries-old conspiracy tropes, had been in a lull. Its followers — who believe that a cabal of Democratic politicians, Hollywood elites and media figures are Satan-worshipping pedophiles secretly being hunted by Donald Trump — hadn’t heard from “Q” in years. But they didn’t need new orders. When the Diddy scandal exploded, the movement simply adapted. The old footage. The extravagant parties. The whispers about “freak-offs” and kompromat. For the true believers, it all clicked into place.

The shift came just as federal authorities were bearing down on Combs. In early 2024, he was indicted on five counts, including sex trafficking and transportation for prostitution. By the time his trial ended in a split verdict — guilty on two counts, acquitted on the most serious — the viral tweet about his “Eat-a-woman” party had been viewed more than 4 million times.

“These branches of the QAnon saga are based on some level of reality,” says Kevin Mercuri, an executive-in-residence at Emerson College and expert on conspiracy theory culture. “Jeffrey Epstein obviously had done something egregiously wrong, but there’s a big hole there: where did he really get his money from? And who was on the plane, who’s in the little black book? I think with Diddy, there’s a similar level of mystery. We don’t have firsthand knowledge of what happened at those parties. Some people have talked about what was purportedly leaked. But there’s enough of a hole in the story, QAnon — or anybody else — can fill that hole in.”

And fill it they did. Message boards lit up. Threads on 4chan and Reddit built elaborate timelines tying Combs to underground trafficking tunnels, “Hollywood red rooms” and occult rituals — all QAnon hallmarks. TikTok and YouTube algorithms helped too, rewarding creators who reposted old party footage (including the sushi-on-women moment) with ominous captions and coded language. Views soared into the millions.

The conspiracy wave didn’t stop with anonymous message board posters. Soon it was being fueled by voices who had once been inside the Diddy orbit — or close enough to sound credible.

Chief among them: Gene Deal, Combs’ former bodyguard. A longtime presence in the Bad Boy camp (he was there the night Biggie was killed), Deal reemerged as a prolific YouTube guest, offering up cryptic — and at times unhinged — theories tying his former boss to everything from literal blood sacrifice to political corruption.

Deal also appears in a documentary about rapper-turned-politician Shyne, recounting a bizarre story in which he claims to have witnessed Combs performing a bird sacrifice in Central Park before their joint trial. Whether Deal believed it or not, the Q crowd certainly did.

“People ain’t gon’ tie this together,” Deal said in one video, “but if you look at it, you have to say because of Mayor Adams and his relationship with Diddy, it brought on the Southern District of New York to start investigating Diddy on civil lawsuits that was put against him. ‘Cause the feds are going after all these politicians in New York City.”

Then came more fuel.

Al B. Sure! — the New Jack Swing artist and father of one of Kim Porter’s children — posted a cryptic four-part Instagram series implying that Combs may have been involved in Porter’s 2017 death. Porter, a former model and actress, died of lobar pneumonia after years in an on-again-off-again relationship with Combs. Sure, who had recently survived a life-threatening illness, hinted that more revelations were coming in his forthcoming memoir.

Meanwhile, a self-published book, written under a pseudonym and attributed to Porter’s “diaries,” appeared on Amazon, claiming to reveal secrets about Combs’ parties, alleged abuse and surveillance operations. Porter’s children quickly denounced the book, and it was pulled from circulation — but not before it lit up Q-adjacent corners of the internet.

At the same time, civil lawsuits against Combs piled up. First came the bombshell suit from Cassie Ventura, his former girlfriend and music protégé, alleging abuse — a case that was settled in 24 hours. Then came producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones Jr., whose filing alleged druggings, sexual coercion and surveillance — echoing the core elements of the Epstein conspiracy theories. Lil Rod even claimed that Combs used hidden cameras to obtain kompromat on powerful guests, a narrative tailor-made for the QAnon imagination.

By the time Combs’ trial began, the internet was bracing for a bombshell. Conspiracy theorists had spun up elaborate narratives implicating not just the mogul, but a long list of celebrities said to have attended his so-called “freak-off” parties. Jennifer Lopez, they claimed, had filed for divorce from Ben Affleck to shield him from financial ruin ahead of her own imminent arrest. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres had allegedly fled the country. Beyoncé was supposedly caught singing “Ave Maria” in a child-trafficking tunnel beneath the Capitol. Justin Bieber had even dropped a cryptic, AI-generated revenge track titled “Lost Myself at a Diddy Party,” they claimed.

What they got instead was a relatively straightforward trial. No tunnels. No celebrity bombshells. No singing in the dark.

Despite harrowing testimony from the prosecution’s witnesses, the courtroom drama was surprisingly contained — focused largely on the relationships at the center of the indictment, with only one celebrity witness taking the stand. The “storm,” as QAnon followers call it, had not arrived.

Still, in the warped logic of conspiracy culture, that anticlimax didn’t kill the narrative. It fed it.

The verdict on July 2 found Combs guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, but cleared him of the more serious sex trafficking and racketeering allegations. No dramatic takedowns, no mass arrests and even his chief of staff, named in court as an “agent and co‑conspirator,” wasn’t indicted.

But within QAnon circles, that outcome isn’t the end — it’s proof. Because if Combs wasn’t fully nailed, it must mean the deep state is shielding him. The acquittal on the big charges only corroborates the conspiracy, right?

In true QAnon logic, some have flipped their narrative again: the “evil wizard” who allegedly presided over sushi sacrifices is now being cast as a persecuted truth-teller — someone punished for knowing too much and, maybe, ready to expose more.

For the QAnon faithful who know how to work the machine, Diddy was still a gift. His story hit just as Pastel QAnon — a softer, Instagram-friendly offshoot of the movement — was flourishing. Aimed largely at women, this version cloaks conspiracy theories in wellness aesthetics and #SaveTheChildren messaging, using emotionally resonant stories of abuse as a gateway. The Combs allegations — involving two ex-girlfriends, graphic testimony and a flood of civil suits — made for ideal on-ramps.

The narratives were easy to package: powerful man, vulnerable victims, hidden abuse. Clip a few seconds of old party footage, add ominous music and drop in coded captions — the kind of content tailor-made for TikTok’s algorithm. It didn’t matter whether any of it was provable. It just had to feel true.

Combs, who has denied all allegations and maintained his innocence throughout both his criminal trial and the still-growing stack of civil suits, now faces years in prison. But even if his legal saga ended tomorrow, the conspiracy theories won’t. In fact, the movement has already moved on — not away from Diddy, but through him, deeper into the labyrinth.

Because in 2025, a party from 2004 can be anything you want it to be. Even a ritual sacrifice.