“Love is something I live for,” declared hip-hop mogul P Diddy when I plucked up the courage to ask him about his unconventional private life.
‘Love is something I need. But I haven’t been able to achieve it.’
The atmosphere inside the luxury caravan where I was trying to interview this 41-year-old father of six (by three different women) was in the process of becoming very cold.
“Is that why,” I continued, “you never decided to settle down and get married?”
Before I met Diddy (real name Sean Combs), I had been told three things. First: he will be late. Second: there will be a huge entourage. Third: Despite being a household name, Diddy hates – absolutely hates! – talking about anything that involves your domestic arrangements. All three turned out to be 100 percent true.
P Diddy (real name Sean Combs) is facing a wave of criminal allegations, from rape and sex trafficking to assault and even child abuse.
“Look,” Diddy responded, leaning forward from a white leather couch. ‘In a perfect world, of course, things would have worked out that way. I would have married one of the women I have had children with.
But it wasn’t like that. At this moment, I have no desire to get married, nor any desire not to get married. Until now, it just hasn’t happened to me. It happens to some people. For others it just doesn’t happen. It’s something I leave in the hands of God. OK?’
With that, the line of conversation was politely but firmly closed: an American PR person said it was time for me to ask him some questions about one of his recently launched fragrance lines.
The year was 2011. I was working in Hollywood as a correspondent for a national newspaper. Diddy (‘call me Sean’) was halfway through an extraordinary transformation from street rap artist to billionaire founder of global lifestyle brands.
My audience with this titan of the entertainment industry, which took place on the set of a music video in the Mojave Desert, several hours’ drive north of Los Angeles, would last about 45 minutes.
But that little exchange above marked the closest I came to breaking the impenetrable façade that P. Diddy maintained during our meeting.
Thirteen years later, I’m beginning to understand why. Because Diddy’s closely guarded private life is today at the center of a grotesque scandal that threatens to shake the American entertainment industry to its foundations.
Today, the 54-year-old former rap artist is locked up in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, facing a wave of criminal allegations, from rape and sex trafficking to assault and even child abuse.
Diddy with rapper Jay-Z and singers Usher and Mariah Carey at an event in New York in 2004.
Dozens of women have claimed to have been drugged and raped by Diddy after meeting him in exclusive bars and clubs that he frequented throughout his musical career.
Police have raided his homes in Florida and Los Angeles, seeking evidence to corroborate claims made in a series of lawsuits accusing the musician of using his wealth and celebrity to cover up depraved sexual behavior over several decades.
Combs’ attorney says the rapper “emphatically and categorically denies as false and defamatory any claim that he sexually abused any person, including minors.”
Last week, a lawyer named Tony Buzbee, who represents 120 alleged victims, held an extraordinary press conference in which he promised to file lawsuits in several states that will name “many powerful people” with “many dirty secrets” related to their friendship. . with Diddy.
Dozens of women have claimed that Combs drugged and raped them after meeting him at exclusive bars and clubs he frequented throughout his music career. One employee, music producer Rodney Jones, has portrayed him as an Epstein-like figure, saying Diddy forced him to have sex with prostitutes while the star videotaped the encounters.
His testimony suggests that Diddy’s carefully cultivated public image hid some very dark secrets.
There was certainly something very unusual about the man I met all those years ago. Despite being a high-profile billionaire, with the kind of lifestyle others dream of, he was strangely melancholy. As I noted then, he never cracked a smile during the time I spent in his company. But the strange behavior seemed to be largely part of a brand.
Our first scheduled meeting was supposed to take place at one of the famous ‘bungalows’ at the Beverly Hills Hotel, home to Old Hollywood stars like Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe. But it was canceled about three hours after our 10am meeting time, on the grounds that Diddy had fallen asleep after a late-night party.
When we finally caught up, at the aforementioned music set, I was forced to stand there, watching Diddy being followed by an entourage that included two personal assistants, a personal chef, a butler, a servant employed exclusively to hold his chopsticks. of teeth and a stylist named Dave, who kindly lent me one of the artist’s cashmere cardigans to protect me from the cold.
A price tag, still attached, revealed that it had cost $2,500. Diddy’s caravan was fitted with white leather sofas and fur rugs, and lit by dozens of expensive-smelling Diptyque candles costing more than £50 each.
The man himself wore diamonds, furs, dark glasses and teeth made entirely of gold. It was part of an image that allowed him to sell clothing (under the Sean John label), fragrances (‘Unforgivable’ and ‘I Am King’) and a popular brand of vodka (Ciroc).
Singer Jennifer Lopez photographed with P Diddy at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in 2000. The couple dated from 1999 to 2001.
‘What I sell, to be honest, I sell lifestyle. I sell entertainment. Everything is under the same umbrella, the same mentality,” is how he explained the business to me.
His life story was, on paper, extraordinary: the son of a Harlem street dealer who had been shot to death as a small child, Diddy first achieved fame through the New York gangster rap scene. fueled by drugs and crime in the early 1990s. When I asked him how he first achieved success, he attributed it to an uncanny ability to identify hit songs.
“From the age of 12 I could listen to records on the radio and the first time I heard them I said: ‘I like that record.'” Every time it made it into the top ten,” he recalled. ‘The first time I heard a record, if I liked it a lot, I knew it would be a hit. Then I felt like I had an ear.’
In 1997, Diddy first made headlines thanks to the murder of his best friend and creative partner Christopher Wallace, known by the stage name ‘Biggie Smalls’, during a feud between rival rap bands.
After the tragedy, he released a tribute to his late friend: I’ll Be Missing You, sampling the Police song Every Breath You Take. It reached number one in 15 countries. That success convinced Diddy that a considerable fortune could be made producing a hip-hop brand that could be sold to the American middle classes.
By the time we met, the one-time gangbanger had become a fully paid-up member of the celebrity class, starring in films such as Get Me To The Greek (in which he rubbed shoulders with another fallen star, Russell Brand). ), and reality TV shows, including I Want To Work For Diddy, an Apprentice knockoff in which he tests potential employees by making them complete important tasks, like getting him a slice of cheesecake, in Manhattan at 2 of the morning.
In 2010, Forbes estimated his annual earnings at $30 million (£19 million) and estimated his net worth at ten times that amount. He was designated a billionaire in 2022.
When we met, he was very happy bragging about his commercial success (“Look, I’m one of the greatest to ever do it,” was how he described his career), and fussy when it came to almost everything else.
Throughout this period, he had supported his various children and ex-girlfriends in a collection of luxury homes in Florida, occasionally traveling to take them on superyacht vacations. However, this somewhat unorthodox arrangement is said to hide some unpleasant secrets.
They first became public last November, when his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura filed a lawsuit accusing him of rape, violence and sex trafficking, saying he was “prone to uncontrollable rage,” with accusations including that he “blow[ed]up her car.” a man after learning that he was romantically interested in Mrs. Ventura.
She accused him of abusing her with drugs, beating her and forcing her to have sex with a succession of prostitutes while he filmed the encounters. Toward the end of their 13-year relationship in 2018, the lawsuit says Diddy forced his way into her home and raped her.
A day after the legal complaint was filed, Diddy, who denied any wrongdoing, settled the case.
However, the resulting publicity had within days led two more women to file similar lawsuits alleging that he had also abused them several years earlier. In March, five accusers had gone public and the Department of Homeland Security had opened an investigation.
Then in May, CNN obtained security video from a Los Angeles hotel that showed Diddy, wearing only a towel and socks, kicking, punching and dragging a woman, identified as Ventura, sometime in 2016.
“He is an imperfect person, but not a criminal,” his lawyers said. But the detectives did not agree: on September 16, when the number of complainants numbered in the dozens, he was finally arrested.
Diddy’s future is now in the hands of the American judicial system. A sad fate for a man who, when we met, seemed concerned about his legacy as a role model for aspiring black Americans. “To whom much is given, much is expected,” he said when I asked him how he wanted to be remembered.
‘I have to take that responsibility. To be a shining example of a real person, striving to be the best I can be, the best person and father.’
That ship has now well and truly sailed.