Instagram posts – Conspiracy theory falsely links Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to Los Angeles wildfires

Viral social media posts are sharing a conspiracy theory that the Los Angeles wildfires were intentionally set to cover up evidence related to music magnate Sean “Diddy” Combs.

In a Jan. 10 Instagram video, a woman asked whether the Southern California wildfires are “a huge cover up for Hollywood.” She pointed to a video clip in which Ally Carter, a woman who claims to be one of Combs’ sex trafficking victims, said there would be fires “to hide evidence.”

The video’s creator then said, “If the fires are tied in with Diddy, they must be covering some deep sh— if they’re willing to burn down a whole city. It has to be something big.”

Catherine Austin Fitts, who was a Housing and Urban Development assistant secretary under former President George H.W. Bush, also shared this conspiracy on a Jan. 9 podcast for the antivaccine group Children’s Health Defense. Fitts has promoted COVID-19 conspiracy theories, too.

“In situations like this, I look at the patterns of who got wiped out and how,” Fitts said on the podcast. “And one of the first questions, I’ll be honest, that I’m gonna look at when I look at some of the communities involved, is ‘How many of the homeowners were on the P. Diddy list?’”

Other Instagram users made similar claims that the wildfires were set to destroy evidence related to Combs. Some posts also shared the clip of Carter.

A Threads post said it was “not a coincidence at all” that the fires hit “all (of) the celebrities’ houses that had something to do with Diddy.”

(Screenshot from Instagram)

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

This claim has no factual basis. The wildfires have destroyed thousands of homes in greater Los Angeles, belonging to both celebrities and noncelebrities.

State and local officials have said the Los Angeles wildfires’ cause remains under investigation and could take weeks or months to determine. High winds and dryness in Southern California have fueled the fires’ spread.

A Washington Post investigation found that the initial fire in the Palisades neighborhood erupted Jan. 7 around where a New Year’s Eve fire had been extinguished six days earlier, raising what some experts said was a possible reignition of smoldering material from the previous fire. 

PolitiFact fact-checked and rated False a claim that Combs’ Los Angeles home was “completely consumed” by the fires. Combs’ home still stood as of Jan. 16; the house was not in an evacuation zone nor was it considered immediately threatened.

Federal agents already raided Combs’ Los Angeles and Miami homes in March, according to a federal indictment, seizing evidence that included narcotics, guns, ammunition and “more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant.”

Combs was arrested in September 2024 on charges he led a racketeering conspiracy and used abuse, threats and coercion to engage in sex trafficking and other crimes. Combs has pleaded not guilty and is being held in a Brooklyn, New York, jail awaiting trial.

The original video clip of Carter warning about fires has been taken down, but other social media posts resharing the video show that it predated the Los Angeles wildfires outbreak.

Experts have previously told PolitiFact that conspiracy theories related to breaking news often surge when there are information vacuums.

“Everybody wants to know the truth, but there’s limited information that’s out there, and that creates an opportunity for others to exploit this,” Todd Helmus, a senior behavioral scientist specializing in disinformation and violent extremism at Rand Corp., a nonpartisan think tank, told PolitiFact in October.

The Palisades and Eaton fires continued Jan. 16 and had burned more than 37,000 acres and destroyed more than 8,000 structures. At least 24 people have died. Over the past week, several other smaller fires have broken out across Southern California, and all but two have been fully contained, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported.

Credible evidence does not support the notion that this large-scale destruction affecting hundreds of thousands of people, their property and their livelihoods was intentionally orchestrated to cover up evidence in a case that is already being prosecuted.

We rate the claim that Los Angeles wildfires are part of a Hollywood conspiracy to cover up evidence related to Combs Pants on Fire!