Music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, former Hollywood heavyweight Harvey Weinstein and rapper A$AP Rocky were among the famous faces in court 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.

The acrimonious dispute between actors Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively continued, after bursting into public view last December when Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department, followed by a lawsuit accusing him of sexually harassing and waging a smear campaign against her in connection with their 2024 movie "It Ends With Us."

The dispute at times transfixed Hollywood and even involved superstar singer Taylor Swift, a friend of Lively's who Baldoni wanted to question under oath.

The acrimony also annoyed U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman, who in August threatened all parties in the case with contempt unless the "intemperate language and personal attacks" stopped. Rhetoric has since been toned down.

Lively and Baldoni co-starred in "It Ends With Us", which Baldoni also directed. Despite mixed reviews it grossed more than $351 million worldwide according to Box Office Mojo.

In her complaint, Lively accused Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios of pursuing a "carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others, from speaking out about the hostile environment" they created.

She is seeking unspecified damages for alleged harassment, invasion of privacy and violations of federal and state civil rights laws. A trial is scheduled for March 2026.

In June, Liman dismissed Baldoni's $400 million defamation lawsuit against Lively, saying Baldoni didn't show that Lively made defamatory statements outside her California complaint, which was protected by privilege.

The judge also dismissed a claim that Lively, with help from her husband Ryan Reynolds, extorted Baldoni by refusing to promote the film unless she got more creative control.

Baldoni decided in October not to refile. Liman also dismissed Baldoni's $250 million defamation case against the New York Times, which wrote about the dispute.

In November, Baldoni asked for Blake Lively's lawsuit to be dismissed. In a court filing, his lawyers said he resolved Lively's concerns about sporadic misunderstandings and "awkward comments" on the set of the film, including over her physical appearance, as soon as she raised them.

They also said Baldoni had a right to hire a crisis management firm to defend his reputation after Lively began disparaging him publicly.

"This is a dispute about Hollywood reputations, not genuine legal wrongs," the lawyers for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios said in the Manhattan federal court filing.

"No reasonable juror could find that the handful of comments and miscommunications Lively has mustered amounts to sexual harassment," they added. "That Lively's reputation may have suffered is a result of her own ill-advised public statements and actions."

At the time, lawyers for Lively did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Former Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was back in court after a state appeals court last year overturned his 2020 conviction.

The judge overseeing his criminal case in Manhattan declared a mistrial on a rape charge, one day after Weinstein was convicted on a separate felony sex abuse charge.

Justice Curtis Farber of the state Supreme Court ended the trial after the jury foreperson refused to deliberate for a sixth day, following multiple days of reported dissension among jurors that at times was aired in the courtroom.

Prosecutors plan to try Weinstein a third time on the charge of third-degree rape, over his alleged mistreatment of the aspiring actor Jessica Mann in 2013.

Jurors had delivered a mixed verdict on the other two counts Weinstein faced. They convicted him of first-degree criminal sexual act over his alleged assault of former production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006, and acquitted him of the same charge over his alleged assault of aspiring actor Kaja Sokola in 2002.

Weinstein, 73, pleaded not guilty, and has denied assaulting anyone or having non-consensual sex.

He plans to appeal his conviction, which carries a maximum prison term of 25 years.

Arthur Aidala, a lawyer for Weinstein, told reporters outside the courthouse at the time: "We have very powerful evidence of gross jury misconduct at this trial," including that jurors considered outside evidence concerning Weinstein's conduct.

Weinstein co-founded the Miramax studio, whose hit movies included such Academy Award winners as "Shakespeare in Love" and "Pulp Fiction."

His downfall began in 2017 and helped spark the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by powerful men. More than 100 women have accused Weinstein of misconduct.

Prosecutors in Manhattan said Weinstein used his power and influence to trap and abuse women.

Defense lawyers countered that Weinstein's accusers lied out of spite after their consensual sexual encounters with him failed to lead to Hollywood stardom.

A different jury in the Manhattan court found Weinstein guilty in 2020 of raping Mann and sexually assaulting Haley, but New York state's highest court overturned Weinstein's conviction and 23-year prison sentence last year.

Weinstein is appealing a separate 2022 rape conviction and 16-year prison sentence in California.

The mistrial came one day after the jury foreperson told Farber that other jurors were shouting at and threatening him for refusing to change his vote on the rape count.

The foreperson did not indicate publicly how he planned to vote, and Farber sent jurors home to cool off.

Weinstein has had many health problems, and he attended the Manhattan trial in a wheelchair.

He spent the months leading up to the trial at the notorious Rikers Island jail and in a Manhattan hospital.

Weinstein's eponymous film studio filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, five months after sexual misconduct accusations against him became widely publicized.

A Los Angeles jury  found Grammy-nominated rapper A$AP Rocky not guilty of two felony counts of assault with a semi-automatic weapon in a 2021 altercation with another hip-hop artist in Hollywood.

Rocky, the romantic partner of singer Rihanna and father of her three children, turned around and jumped head first into the audience after the verdict was read. He hugged supporters as loud cheers filled the courtroom.

"Thank y'all for saving my life," he said to members of the 12-person jury.

Rocky was accused of pointing a handgun at a former friend, Terell Ephron, during a heated argument, then firing twice in Ephron's direction during a second confrontation. Both encounters occurred on November 6, 2021.

Ephron said he suffered a minor injury when his knuckles were grazed by a bullet.

Rocky's defense attorneys said the gun involved in the incident was a prop gun the artist had used in a music video and that it fired only blanks. They also said Ephron was the aggressor in the confrontation.

"We want to thank God first," Rocky told reporters outside the courthouse as he stood between Rihanna and his attorney. "This is crazy right now."

"I'm thankful and blessed to be here right now, to be a free man talking to y'all," he said.

Rihanna appeared in court a handful of times during the trial.

-Lisa Giles-Keddie and Marie-Louise Gumuchian