Some of Sean Combs’ team members have found a new boss amid the Bad Boy founder’s legal troubles: Usher.
At least three members of Combs’ personal team have joined Usher’s camp for “The R&B Tour” with Chris Brown, Rolling Stone has learned, including Combs’ former chief of staff Kristina Khorram, a personal assistant who was called as a witness in Combs’ criminal trial last summer, and a photographer who had been working on a documentary with Combs before his September 2024 arrest.
It’s unclear what capacity Khorram is working in, but she has some involvement in the Confessions singer’s massive 56-date world tour. It’s also not clear how exactly the trio landed gigs with Usher, apart from his longtime connection to Combs, who mentored him as a teenager for his self-titled debut album in 1994.
A spokesperson for Usher declined to comment. A representative for Khorram did not return Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.
Earlier this year, Usher told Forbes he didn’t have “anything negative” to say about Combs, and instead is placing emphasis on his legacy and his “valuable contributions.” “I’m not saying that every man is perfect. I’m not saying that all of us don’t have flaws,” Usher said. “But I can’t, with any sense of humanity, not recognise the valuable contributions that this man made for us as Black entrepreneurs, for us as businessmen, for us as people who have transitioned culture and ideas into something that’s tangible. So many people benefitted from what he created, and I acknowledge that.”
News of her role comes as Khorram has kept a low profile since Combs’ arrest. She had served as his right hand for more than a decade, rising through the ranks of Combs Enterprises before being named as his chief of staff in 2020. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York painted Khorram as one of Combs’ co-conspirators in the sprawling sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy case they built against the music mogul. (Combs was acquitted of those charges, but convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. He is currently serving a 50-month prison sentence.)
Government lawyers alleged that Khorram assisted in organising freak-offs for Combs and his girlfriends with male escorts, helped facilitate an act of bribery in order to suppress hotel surveillance footage of Combs attacking Cassie Ventura, and helped her boss secure a variety of drugs. However, Khorram was never called as a witness in the trial, and she was not charged with any crime. Khorram previously said in a statement that she never “condoned or aided and abetted the sexual assault of anyone.”
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
“The idea that I could be accused of playing a role in — or even being a bystander to — the rape of anyone is beyond upsetting, disturbing, and unthinkable,” Khorram said. “That is not who I am and my heart goes out to all victims of sexual assault. I am confident that the allegations against me will be proven to be untrue.”
Rolling Stone has learned that Usher has already parted ways with Combs’ former personal assistant, who had worked for Combs between December 2021 and September 2024. The assistant was granted immunity to testify that part of his duties included making sure Combs always had access to his “Gucci pouch,” which contained “cocaine, ketamine, molly, Adderall, [and] Xanax.” He helped manage aspects of Combs’ love life, including setting up hotel rooms for freak-offs, which he knew as “king nights.” The assistant also sometimes acted as a go-between for Combs and one of his girlfriends who used the pseudonym Jane in court.
Usher’s new videographer also worked in a similar role for Combs, and before the music executive was arrested, the videographer had been collaborating with Combs on a documentary. Some of that project’s footage appeared in Sean Combs: The Reckoning, 50 Cent’s Netflix docuseries about his longtime rival that premiered in December 2025.
Combs and Usher’s friendship goes back decades. A twentysomething Combs brought Usher into the fold during the early days of Bad Boy as a favor to music executive L.A. Reid, who wanted Combs to put a young Usher through “flavor camp.” Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2004, Usher recalled a few formative months living out of Combs’ New York home. Over the years, they’ve presented together on award stages and performed alongside each other for Bad Boy’s reunion tour in 2016.
From Rolling Stone US
