NOTE: Hey, everyone! Merry Belated Christmas and Happy New Year! 🎄🎅🏽🤶🏼🎊🎉🎈🍾🥂 I know I’ve been gone for a while. Believe it or not, I was working on some articles during the summer, but for some reason, I couldn’t finish them. By the time fall came around, I started working on some other projects. Then, there was also the other stuff: sinuses, work, fatigue, and lack of motivation. But, I’m here now, and I’m going to finish those drafts that’ve been sitting around for the last few months. So without further ado, let’s get this party started.

On Nov. 16, 2023, Sean “Puffy” Combs’s former girlfriend, Cassie, served him with a $30M lawsuit, stating that the music mogul abused her physically as well as sexually for the better part of a decade. 

Mere days after receiving the suit, Puffy (forgive me, I refused to keep up with all this man’s stupid name changes over the last 20+ yrs.) opted to settle with Cassie out of court. However, after Cassie received her settlement, more women came forward with their own lawsuits, making similar claims against Puffy. There have also been allegations arising that Puffy mistreated the late mother of his children, Kim Porter. Granted, Jaguar Wright made similar allegations over the years (among others), but now those claims are getting louder and more and more frequent.

Now folks all over the internet are speaking and making think pieces, declaring that Puffy ain’t shit. This isn’t news to me at all, because I always had a feeling the man wasn’t shit, going all the way back to my teenage years.

When I first saw Puffy, it was on Biggie Smalls’s “Big Poppa” video circa 1994. I didn’t think much of him; he was Biggie’s friend in the hot tub with the blonde, as far as I was concerned (trivia: the blonde is Misa Hylton, the mother of one of Puffy’s children).

I later learned that Puffy was the founder of Bad Boy Records, and despite not being an artist at that particular time, he had to be all up and through all his artists’ videos. I mean damn near every…friggin’…video.

I’m not a fan of Suge Knight either, but ol’ boy told no lies about Puffy during that fateful night at The ’95 Source Awards.

After Biggie died in ’97, Puffy seemed to be everywhere. First, he released his “I’ll Be Missing You” tribute to Biggie, which I thought was really sweet at the time. Back then, I was foolish enough to believe that Puffy and Biggie were besties, but now the tribute feels hollow considering what a greedy, money grubbin’ bastard Puffy actually is. More on that later. Next, “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems” came out, and despite it being a classic Hip Hop track, I was tired of seeing the video every five minutes after a while.  To make matters worse, “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems” is actually Biggie’s song, but since it was released posthumously and Puffy is all up and through the video (yet again), many folks—including myself at one point—believed Puffy was the main artist.

After that, Puffy blew up and he was everywhere…and he was officially on my last nerve. Every time I turned on MTV or BET, there he was. Now, you could argue that I was experiencing the same fatigue with Puffy as I did with Mase, Destiny’s Child, and Ja Rule during their heydays. I have to disagree. I love Mase, Destiny’s Child, and Ja, despite getting a bit sick of hearing them every five minutes back in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Puffy is another story. Not only was he everywhere, but in the late ’90s, he wasn’t exactly the best rapper (he improved as time went by; more on that later as well). Up until this time, the only song of his I actually liked was “All About the Benjamins.” I have to be honest; regardless of my personal feelings about Puffy, I still love “All About the Benjamins” to this very day. Lil’ Kim killed her verse.

There was something else about Puffy that was off-putting as well…he struck me as very egotistical. Now don’t get me wrong, a lot of rappers—especially in the late ’90s—had conceited personas, but they were just that. Personas. Something in my bones told me that Puffy was a true to life asshole. I’m not sure exactly what it was that made me feel that way, given that I was still a teenager and I never met the man personally, but I just knew. Years later, Puffy would prove that my intuition was correct.

By 1999 and early 2000s, Puffy was still blowing up. His solo career was getting better (someone must have taught him how to give a better flow and delivery), and I was actually enjoying hearing some of his songs, namely “I Need a Girl (Part 1).” That song continues to be one of my favorites. However, despite being a small fan of Puffy’s solo projects, the man still struck me as a conceited asshole.

On Dec. 27, 1999, Puffy, his then girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, and up-and-coming Bad Boy artist Shyne all visited Club New York in Manhattan, when an altercation broke out. Shyne wound up firing a gun and shooting in a crowd, hitting at least three people. Puffy and J-Lo fled the scene, but were later stopped by police, who found a concealed weapon in Puffy’s car. One of the victims even mentioned that Puffy himself was armed in the club, and possibly fired his weapon as well.  Puffy went on to hire a legal dream team for himself…but not for Shyne. Puffy was acquitted of all charges and Shyne was sentenced to 10 yrs. in prison. He was released after serving eight. Shyne was later deported to his home country of Belize and dropped from the Bad Boy label.

Circa 2002 or 2003, the second season of Making the Band 2: Da Band aired on MTV. Like most of my friends and other folks my age (I was 21 during this time period), I tuned into the show, and was thoroughly entertained by the first season. I was on pins and needles for the second season. I’m sure most of you know where I’m going with this.

During the second season of Making the Band 2, Puffy subjected the members of Da Band (that was the name they ultimately came up with; ugh) to all kinds of foolishness: being crammed together in one small hotel room (I can tell you from experience that that’s not fun), reading Russell Simmons’s autobiography in the cold (ironic, isn’t it?), exercising in freezing weather, having to sing “Juicy” and “Rapper’s Delight” by memory, etc. However, the ultimate was when Puffy asked those kids to walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn to buy him a piece of cheesecake from Junior’s Restaurant. Unfortunately, I couldn’t post the entire clip due to “age restrictions,” so you have to click the link to see the scene. If you’re good with watching a snippet of the infamous cheesecake fiasco, check out the video below.

I love how he claims he wasn’t trying to do anything malicious by lording his power over those kids to make them walk from one borough to another, when we all know that’s exactly what this fool was doing. I’m not sure what pissed me off more: the hazing or the gaslighting.

Now, some of y’all may be saying, “Puff did that to create ratings for his TV show and it worked!  We’re still taking about that to this day!”  I’m well aware of that.  It still doesn’t negate the fact that Puffy’s an asshole.  Not only did he haze these kids, he did it with the promise that they would have flourishing music careers if they did what he asked…and it never happened.  Hell, in my humble opinion, I believe he put them together just to see them fail…all for the sake of TV ratings.

Think about it:  the people he chose to be in the Da Band (Fred, Chopper, Ness, Sarah, Babs, and Dylan) didn’t mesh well all.  Not personally (they were constantly getting into fights behind petty shit), or musically (their songs were all over the place), and the majority of the members were immature and unprofessional.

Puffy didn’t stop his “hazing” there.  In the next installments of Making the Band he continued to subject the contestants to humiliating and/or ridiculous tasks like singing for a bed or running six miles through Central Park (with no previous training).  Did I mention that, Tiffany, one of the girls competing, injured her hip during that six-mile run and was later booted off the show as a result?  Sad. Apparently, there’s a rumor going around stating the entire run scene was fake (folks claim that in reality, Tiffany was underage and Puffy had to think of an entertaining storyline to get rid of her), but I don’t put a damn thing past Puffy.

And it wasn’t just the hazing for me.  When I Want To Work for Diddy aired circa 2008, I watched him approach his would-be assistants with a nasty attitude (oh, but they better not dare be nasty back.  One girl politely checked him and found herself disqualified; I wish I had that clip), and to make matters worse, it was later revealed that the winners didn’t work one day at the Bad Boy offices.

It was the same for some of the Making the Band winners.  Jamereo Artis, a bass player, won the last Making the Band competition (now entitled Making His Band) Puffy had.  Despite winning, he was never called back to record any music, and spent months with no visible income waiting for his chance to work with a man he admired.  After about a year, he realized “the band” was never going to come to fruition and it was all for the glory of TV.  Thankfully, he was soon discovered by Bruno Mars and was hired to be part of the Hooligans.  Jamereo plays with Bruno to this very day (this is why I’ll always love Bruno, but that’s another article).

After that, Puffy didn’t spend as much time in the spotlight, but nonetheless, some other nasty little secrets started to make their way into the public domain.  First, in ’05, The Lox had their now infamous interview on The Angie Martinez Show, where they revealed that Puffy wasn’t paying them a damn thing.  Puffy himself called in to defend himself, but the fellas made sure to let it be known that there was a pattern going on between him and his artists.  Every last one of them left Bad Boy Records due to compensation problems. 

Years later, we learned that Black Rob died penniless.  Pam, from the group Total, never outwardly accused Puffy of doing her dirty when she was in the employ of Bad Boy Records, but she damn sure implied it in her autobiography. It’s also been rumored that Puffy screwed over the late Craig Mack before he turned his life around.  Mase later came out and spilled all the tea about his finances, or lack thereof.  Last year, Puffy finally rewarded his former artists with the publishing they rightfully deserved…if they signed an NDA. 

I won’t even get into the other foolishness Puffy’s done that makes me itch (i.e.:  the rumor going around about him allegedly assaulting Christopher Williams, telling Lizzo she couldn’t twerk for his Easter livestream, but having no problem with Draya Michele—a thinner girl—doing it, etc.)  The last 20+ years have proved to me that Puffy is unscrupulous as it gets, so when Cassie and three other women accuse him of sexual assault and other disgusting deeds, I stand by them wholeheartedly, Cassie especially.  If I’m wrong, I’ll put my foot in my mouth, but I have a feeling I’m right on the money. Just like I was when I was 15.

Oh yeah, and there’s one more reason I don’t like Puffy…the dude can’t dive to save his life.

—Written by Nadiya

What are your thoughts on Puffy, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, Brother Love, or whatever his name is this week?  Did you always have a feeling about him like I did, or were you a fan?   If you were a fan of his, are you still one?  Do you believe Cassie and the other women?  What do you think about Puffy’s actions during the Making the Band series?  What about the I Wanna Work for Diddy series?  Have you heard what Jaguar Wright said about him?  What do you think about that?  What are your thoughts on Puffy’s former Bad Boy artists?  Also, what name do you refer to the man as?  Let me know in the comments section!