Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is in grave danger because of the secrets he knows, his ex-nemesis Marion ‘Suge’ Knight has warned the hip-hop mogul.
The founder of Death Row Records sent a warning to Combs during a call-in to his weekly podcast, Fox News reported on Friday.
“I tell you what, Puffy, your life is in danger because you know the secrets, who’s involved in that little secret room you guys [are] participating in,” Knight said on his ‘Collect Call’ podcast.
Since October, the former rap impresario has recorded the podcast by phone from the Ronald Donovan Correctional Facility in California, while serving a 28-year prison sentence for manslaughter.
Combs used to be known as ‘Puffy’ and ‘Puff Daddy’ during his rise to hip-hop fame in the 1990s, when he founded Bad Boy Records and worked with the likes of the Notorious BIG, Mary J. Blige and Lil’ Kim. The artistic moniker eventually got shortened to ‘P. Diddy’.
Last month, police and heavily armed federal agents raided two of Combs’ properties in California and Florida, as part of a rumored human trafficking probe by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Though he has had a long-running beef with Combs, Knight was not happy about the development.
“It’s a bad day for hip-hop, for the culture, for black people, because when one looks bad, we all look bad,” Knight said in the podcast call. “That’s definitely not nothing to cheer about.”
The 54-year-old Combs was spotted in public on Thursday riding a bicycle in Miami and appearing unconcerned. He has not been charged with any crime.
His legal troubles began last November, when his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura demanded $30 million in damages for what she alleged was a decade of sexual abuse and trafficking. One of Ventura’s claims was that Combs forced her to have sex with male prostitutes while he filmed it. Combs denied all allegations and settled the suit within 24 hours, for an undisclosed amount.
More former associates then emerged with their own lawsuits. One of them, filed by producer Rodney Jones, accused Combs of a multitude of tawdry crimes, from sex trafficking of minors and sexual assault to drug use and gun violence.
Jones alleged that Combs had “hundreds of cameras” in his Los Angeles, New York and Miami homes, which he used to record “celebrities, music label executives, politicians, and athletes” in sex acts with drugged underage prostitutes.
The claims have fueled comparisons with the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who also tended to entertain politicians, magnates and celebrities at his properties – with trafficked underage women, as it turned out. Epstein was found dead in a New York jail in August 2019, and the official government explanation that he committed suicide has been subject of some controversy.