Showbiz in 2025: Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial, Trump announces movie tariffs, Hollywood fires

Hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs' trial and sentencing, Britain's King Charles stripping his younger brother Andrew of his title of prince and Hollywood stars losing their homes in the Los Angeles fires were among the headlines about the rich and famous this year.

Sean "Diddy" Combs, the hip-hop mogul who discovered world-famous artists and helped bring the genre into the mainstream, was cleared of sex trafficking and racketeering charges that could have put him behind bars for life but found guilty of lesser prostitution-related offenses.

Combs, 56, had pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

The eight-week trial focused on allegations that Combs forced two of his former girlfriends to partake in drug-fueled, days-long sexual performances sometimes known as "Freak Offs" with male sex workers in hotel rooms while Combs watched, masturbated and occasionally filmed.

Both women - the rhythm and blues singer Casandra "Cassie" Ventura, and a woman known in court by the pseudonym Jane - testified that he beat them and threatened to withhold financial support or leak sexually explicit images of them.

In July, the 12-member jury unanimously acquitted Combs of racketeering conspiracy and two counts of sex trafficking Ventura and Jane. The Bad Boy Records founder could have faced life in prison if convicted on those counts. He was found guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

The verdict was overall a win for Combs, a former billionaire known for elevating hip-hop in American culture.

Combs, once famed for hosting lavish parties for the cultural elite in luxurious locales like the Hamptons and Saint-Tropez, was sentenced in October to more than four years in prison.

He could be released in less than three years after receiving credit for the time he has already spent locked up at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his September 16, 2024 arrest.

Britain's King Charles stripped his younger brother Andrew of his title of prince and forced him out of his Windsor home, Buckingham Palace said in October, seeking to distance the royals from him over his links to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

Andrew, 65, the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth, has come under mounting pressure in recent years over his behaviour and his ties to the late sex offender Epstein. Earlier, he was forced to stop using his title of Duke of York but Charles then escalated his actions against Andrew by stripping him of all his titles, leaving him to be known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

The Buckingham Palace statement said a formal notice had been served on Andrew to surrender the lease of his Royal Lodge mansion on the Windsor Estate, west of London, and he would move to alternative private accommodation on the Sandringham estate in eastern England. The decision by the king, who is still undergoing regular treatment for cancer, marked one of the most dramatic moves against a member of the royal family in modern British history.

Andrew was once regarded as a dashing naval officer and served in the military during the Falklands War with Argentina in the early 1980s. But he was forced to step down from a roving UK trade ambassador role in 2011, before quitting all royal duties in 2019 and then was stripped of his military links and royal patronages in 2022 amid allegations of sexual misconduct that he has always denied.

That year, he settled a lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre, who died in April, which accused him of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager. Andrew has always denied her account, which returned to prominence in late 2025 with the release of her memoir. In her book, she said "entitled" Andrew believed it was his birthright to have sex with her.

A statement released by Giuffre's family members and carried by several media organizations said her family would "continue Virginia’s battle" and that all abusers and abettors connected to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell needed to be held to account.

Earlier in October, correspondence between Andrew and Epstein from 2011, published by the Mail on Sunday and The Sun, revealed Andrew telling Epstein that they should "keep in close touch" and that they would "play some more soon."

The decision to force Andrew to move away from Windsor was also significant after newspapers reported he had not paid rent on his 30-room mansion for two decades, after initially paying for renovations.

In a rare political intervention into the workings of the royal family, a British parliamentary committee had questioned whether Andrew should still be living in the house.

Polls show the royal family has been losing the support of younger generations for years. Charles, with the support of 43-year-old William, has acted to protect the institution, which experts say is the priority of any monarch.

President Donald Trump said he would impose a 100% tariff on all films produced overseas that are then sent into the U.S., a threat he made twice this year that would upend Hollywood's global business model.

The step signalled Trump's willingness to extend protectionist trade policies into cultural industries, raising uncertainty for studios that depend heavily on cross-border co-productions and international box-office revenue.

"Our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America, by other Countries, just like stealing candy from a baby," Trump said in a September post on his Truth Social.

It was not immediately clear what legal authority Trump would use to impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made films.

Trump had first floated the idea of a movie tariff in May but offered few details, leaving entertainment executives unsure whether it would apply to specific countries or all imports.

The initial call for tariffs jolted the film world,  and temporarily halted projects and international movie finance deals as producers evaluated the potential impact of the levy on each project’s financial viability, two sources familiar with Hollywood motion-picture financing told Reuters.

Modern films often use production, financing, post-production and visual effects spread across multiple countries.

After the announcement in May, a coalition of American film unions and guilds sent a letter to Trump, urging him to support tax incentives for domestic film production in a reconciliation package being drafted in Congress, aiming to help return more movie and television projects to the U.S.

The U.S. film industry recorded a $15.3 billion trade surplus in 2023, backed by $22.6 billion in exports to international markets, according to the Motion Picture Association.

Hollywood has increasingly relied on overseas production hubs such as Canada, the UK and Australia, where tax incentives have attracted big-budget shoots for films ranging from superhero blockbusters to streaming dramas.

At the same time, co-productions with foreign studios have become more common, particularly in Asia and Europe, where local partners provide financing, access to markets, and distribution networks.

Industry executives also warn that a broad tariff could affect the thousands of U.S. workers employed on overseas shoots, from visual effects artists to production crews, whose work is often coordinated across multiple countries.

The "Wicked" films, "Gladiator II" and "Deadpool and Wolverine" are among recent Hollywood films that have been shot outside of the United States.

Billy Crystal, Jeff Bridges and Paris Hilton were among a list of celebrities who lost their homes and neighbourhoods in January in the worst fires in Los Angeles history.

Jamie Lee Curtis, James Woods, Mandy Moore, Mark Hamill and Maria Shriver were among those who publicly described being forced to evacuate as out-of-control fires swept across some of the most lavish real estate in the world. 

The Palisades Fire between Santa Monica and Malibu on the city's western flank and the Eaton Fire in the east near Pasadena rank as the most destructive in Los Angeles history. At least 29 people died in the fires.

The largest blaze scorched more than 23,000 acres (9,308 hectares) in Pacific Palisades, home to film, television and music stars, where the median house is worth $4.5 million. 

Perennial Oscars host Crystal and his wife Janice said they were heartbroken to lose the Pacific Palisades house where they had raised their children and grandchildren, "but with the love of children and friends we will get through this."

Media personality Hilton said she was "heartbroken beyond words" to lose her beachfront mansion.

Oscar winner Curtis said she and her husband, actor and director Christopher Guest, and their children had pledged $1 million to support "our great city and state and the great people who live there".

Because of the fires, the Screen Actors Guild cancelled its in-person event to announce nominations for its 2025 awards, revealing the contenders in a press release while the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences twice postponed the Oscar nominations reveal.

Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Greenday, Rod Stewart and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers were among the famous names taking part in two star-star studded concerts a month later to raise money for wildfire relief.

The FireAid benefit featured surprise pairings and generation-spanning acts, many with connections to the devastated communities of Pacific Palisades and Altadena. 

Artists at two venues in Inglewood near Los Angeles offered thanks to first responders in between soft ballads, poignant moments and rousing rock and pop performances.

Hollywood blasted the White House for targeting free speech after ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel's talk show in September under regulatory threats from Donald Trump's administration, rallying behind the late-night comic after his comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The Walt Disney-owned broadcaster said it was yanking "Jimmy Kimmel Live" indefinitely after at least one affiliate said it would replace the show on its airwaves and the nation's top communications regulator threatened investigations due to Kimmel's statements.

The late-night host, a frequent Trump critic, had suggested in a monologue that Kirk's allies were using his death to "score political points".

Unions representing writers and actors said the move amounted to an attack on constitutionally protected free-speech rights, saying ABC should not have caved in the face of U.S. government pressure.

The suspension of Kimmel's show marked the latest action against media figures, academic workers, teachers and corporate employees over their remarks about Kirk following the 31-year-old's assassination in September in Utah.

A 22-year-old suspect was charged with Kirk's murder, and his precise motive remains unclear. Kirk's death spurred an outpouring of grief among fans while also galvanizing some prominent right-wing supporters to target people who were critical of Kirk's views or joked about his killing.

Six days after pulling the show, Disney said Kimmel would return to late-night television. The U-turn came after several prominent conservatives, including U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who leads oversight of the Federal Communications Commission, joined Democrats in criticizing the head of the FCC for threatening retaliation against ABC.

Disney also faced pressure from consumers rallying against Kimmel's suspension by cancelling their subscriptions to the Disney+ streaming subscription service.

Disney said it had initially suspended the show "to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country."

It added that it found Kimmel's comments about Kirk "were ill-timed and thus insensitive," but the entertainment giant stopped short of an outright apology.

In his return, Kimmel defended political satire against Trump administration "bullying". He jockeyed between his usual brand of wry wit and a more sober, sensitive tone addressing the uproar his earlier commentary had unleashed.

"It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don't think there's anything funny about it," the host told viewers, his voice choking with emotion, moments after taking the stage to a standing ovation.

"Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual - that was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make," he added.

-Lisa Giles-Keddie and Marie-Louise Gumuchian