When will Sean “Diddy” Combs will be released from prison after serving his sentence on federal prostitution convictions? And why does the release date keep changing?
Diddy, 56, is serving a 50-month sentence at a New Jersey federal corrections facility after being convicted in 2025 on prostitution-related charges. The judge hoped the term would “send a message to abusers and victims alike.”
But figuring out when exactly the disgraced hip-hop mogul will be set free is not as simple as counting out 50 months from his date of sentencing, and estimates of his exact date of release have repeatedly changed over the past year.
Combs was already expected to serve less than the full term, thanks to more than a year of time-served as he sat in jail from his September 2024 arrest to his October 2025 sentencing. He has also enrolled in the Residential Drug Abuse Program, the federal prison system’s in-house rehab policy that can shave time off sentences as a reward. Some inmates also serve the last few months of a sentence at a residential reentry management center, better known as a halfway house.
The Bureau of Prisons offers estimated release dates for all federal inmates, and has done so with Diddy since his sentencing. But such dates are exactly that — estimates that the agency says reflect only an “inmate’s projected release date based on BOP calculations,” and not a binding date of freedom.
BOP does not comment on how an inmate’s specific projections are reached, and has specifically declined to do so when asked: “For privacy, safety and security reasons, we do not discuss the conditions of confinement for any individual, including release plans, timing, or procedures, or whether a particular individual is the subject of allegations, investigations, or sanctions,” an agency spokesperson told Billboard in 2025.
For Diddy, that projected release date has often changed, sometimes by many months. Because there is no formal explanation, the reason for those changes cannot be determined, but they have sometimes followed high-profile media reports on his conduct in prison.
The biggest change to Diddy’s release date, however, might have nothing to do with his behavior. The disgraced star is currently appealing his convictions and sentence, and a ruling on that case has been fast-tracked by a federal appeals court, meaning it could arrive soon.
Here’s the latest on what we know about Diddy’s release date — and all the changes we’ve seen before that.
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October 2025: Initially Set for May 2028
Shortly after his sentencing, Diddy’s projected date of release was initially listed at May 5, 2028, which would have represented a 31-month sentence. Even factoring in time-served — one year and two weeks, to be precise — that date was earlier than expected.
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November 2025: Pushed Back After Booze Reports
Diddy’s release date was pushed back nearly a month to June 2028, shortly after media reports that he violated prison rules by drinking homemade alcohol and by making an unauthorized three-way phone call.
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March-July 2026: Date Moved Up Several Times
By summer, Diddy’s release date had been moved up three times: first to April 2028, then to February 2028, then all the way up to Jan. 24, 2028. That would represent a sentence of just 27 months.
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August 2026: Another Delay After Prison Fight
Inmate records in August showed that Diddy’s release date had been pushed back to Feb. 20, 2028. That delay came after media reports of that he’d been involved in a prison fight that landed him in solitary confinement.
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September 2026: Moved Up to Earliest Date Yet
In the weeks after the reported fight, Diddy’s release date moved up again. In late September, inmate records showed that the mogul was set to be freed Jan. 21, 2028 — the earliest date yet.
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October 2026: Pushed Back to March 2028
Diddy’s release date was listed pushed back to March 8, 2028 — a delay that came after NBC News reported he was living a “pampered” life behind bars featuring contraband smartphones, Chinese-style massages and Hennessy cognac.
