From rumors of a grooming then-teenage TikToker Quen Blackwell to allegations of giving STDs to lovers, Diplo is in hot water.
The Gist:
- Diplo has faced allegations of grooming and misconduct.
- Influencer Shelly Auguste claimed Diplo groomed her, and sued him for sexual battery in 2020.
- There were also rumors that Diplo had allegedly groomed TikTok famous person Quenlin Blackwell.
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DJ and record manufacturer Diplo (real title: Thomas Wesley Pentz) is no stranger to controversy referring to his rumored relationships with younger women.
Below, we take a look at some of the allegations against the Major Lazer member — together with the prison battles with influencer Shelly Auguste and the rumors involving him and TikTok superstar Quenlin Blackwell.
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An influencer named Shelly Auguste claimed that Diplo groomed her.
In October 2020, influencer Shelly Auguste sued Diplo for sexual battery, fraud, and defamation. Amid her claims that Diplo had groomed her as a teenager, the DJ went on to later sue Shelly again for stalking, defamation, and attack.
In August 2023, amid their legal battle, Shelly was once interviewed on Sloan Hooks's Let's Get Into It podcast, with the purpose to share more of her tale after being "silenced" for two years, as she claimed.
She mentioned she'd began talking to Diplo in 2014 and had lost her virginity to him in 2019 when he was 41 and she used to be 22, and that he'd given her chlamydia in spite of claiming he were given "tested as much as a porn star." She additionally reiterated more claims from her lawsuit that he'd allegedly recorded her during sex without her consent and had sent her recordings of himself having sex with others.
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She also claimed that Diplo and his lawyers use manipulation ways to stay different young girls from suing him for misconduct.
When the gossip account The Tea Talk posted about this podcast interview on Instagram, any individual commented: "Are we not forgetting that man groomed Quen Blackwell?"
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What happened between Diplo and Quenlin Blackwell?
In October 2020, then-19-year-old TikTok big name Quenlin Blackwell printed that she used to be currently dwelling with the then-41-year-old DJ, and enthusiasts appeared fascinated by their age distinction.
"I live with Diplo right now, and he fully supports my endeavors," she mentioned in a observation at the time that may pass viral. Citing their 22-year age difference, many have been involved that the two had begun a romantic courting.
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"I'm an adult," Quenlin said on Twitter at the time, slamming the rumors. "I'm not being groomed. Platonic relationships exist. I've been living here for over a year..... I'd rather break both of my legs and be forced to walk than pursue Diplo romantically and he'd rather choke."
"He's barely in LA bc he's so busy," she persisted. "Diplo has given me the opportunity and the security to create. Diplo and his team are my mentors in LA and they are my safety net. Diplo and his team have saved me numerous times from the weirdos in LA. My parents trust him. I trust him. Y'all are making me feel icky. Diplo is my LA dad ... nothing more."
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After his title used to be trending all through the weekend of Oct. 24, 2020, Diplo addressed the allegations. "OK so I rent one of my properties to @quenblackwell," he wrote on Twitter at the time, tagging the TikTok famous person. "Her social media is sarcastic and chaotic and I can see you can get a twisted idea but there is nothing but a friendship between us," the Grammy winner stated.
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"As a landlord I don't really consider age or race as a qualification," he added. "U just gotta pay security deposit. And don't poke holes in the walls or ruin my carpet."
When enthusiasts asked why he couldn't have simply "bought her an apartment," the father-of-three answered: "I got my own kids to take care of and mortgages to pay."
A couple years later, alternatively, in 2022, Quen made some feedback that led to concern among enthusiasts. When requested about new tune, she advised her followers in a video post on social media (consistent with Centennial World):
“This manufacturer informed me to come back out right here when I used to be 17, and I got here out here when I was 18, and I didn’t know what I was coming out here for in reality. But then I began making track and then a whole bunch of producers were like, ‘wait, this is really excellent song’ so I finished operating on myself at all."
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“I love my music,” she continued. “My music’s been a journal to me through all the bulls--t I’ve dealt with from someone older like, ‘wanting to help me’ but essentially just like, seeing a young creative would [lighten them] and wanting to own them and wanting to have them a part of your crew.”
“So when I wake up out of the fog and haze from like, living over there and living with these producers and s--t, I like, have all this music,” she said, adding: “I’ve got release dates since 2020 and nothing has been released. It’s April of 2022, I’m 21 now, like, I want to release music I just don’t know how to and I feel lost."
Though she did not mention Diplo through title, some fans had been reminded of the prior rumors about the two.
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Some folks identified different cases of alleged irrelevant behavior from Diplo.
Amid the rumors about Quen and Diplo, some folks took to social media at the time to discover alleged receipts of instances when the DJ have been irrelevant. "If Diplo truly isn't doing anything weird with Quen specifically then that's great," one particular person wrote, "but it doesn't change the fact that Diplo has a long history of predatory behavior."
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The Twitter user added that "numerous black women have come out and said how Diplo groomed and fetishized them from a young age."
Meanwhile, onlookers pointed to an outdated tweet dating back to June of 2010 when the track manufacturer wrote: "girls born in the '90s I have to stop sleepin with u," which many deemed problematic taking into account he was in his 30s while the ladies he's relating to had just turned 20.
Others dug up a 2017 tweet, when Diplo stated he'd "low key sent my CV for R Kelly sex cult membership."
Yikes.
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