Unfortunately, the recently surfaced video footage of Diddy physically assaulting his former girlfriend Cassie in 2016 and his subsequent apology proves that the disgraced rap media mogul is capable of violence. However, there have been many more violent instances and allegations of such peppered throughout Diddy’s long and storied career.
While the various lawsuits filed over the past six months accusing Puff of physical and sexual abuse are seen as the main contributor to his downfall in the public’s eye, perhaps the signs of his overtly aggressive tendencies have been there all along dating back to the late 1980s.
Diddy’s Confirmed and Alleged Instances of Violence
1987-1988: Allegations of Abusing College Girlfriend: A recent investigative report from Rolling Stone contains an interview with a woman who was Sean “Diddy” Combs’ classmate while he attended Howard University between 1987 and 1988. The anonymous woman recalls a day in which she and many other students allegedly witnessed Puff whipping his then-girlfriend with a belt “all over the place” multiple times. According to RS, another source backed up the classmate’s story while Diddy’s former girlfriend declined an interview.
1994: Accusation of Having Tupac Shakur Shot: In November of 1994, Tupac Shakur was infamously robbed and shot five times inside New York City’s Quad Studios after being invited to a recording session by record executive Jimmy “Henchman” Rosemond. Tupac told Vibe in the immediate aftermath of the shooting that he firmly believed Diddy, Henchman and Pac’s former friend The Notorious B.I.G. were either responsible for setting up the attack themselves or had direct knowledge that the incident was to occur and failed to warn him. The shooting and subsequent accusations sparked the deadly East Coast vs. West Coast beef, in which Diddy was a key player. In 2012, Jimmy Henchman confessed to his involvement in Tupac’s attack but Combs and Biggie Smalls were never implicated.
1995: Claims of Beating a Rapper With a Cell Phone: Late hip-hop journalist and media personality Combat Jack wrote a blog in 2009 recounting a story in which he claims to have witnessed Diddy brutally assaulting Brooklyn rapper Positive K. According to Jack, a violent incident at New York’s Club Esso in 1995 found Diddy using a heavy, brick-like cell phone to brutally bludgeon Positive K before Puff’s bodyguards tossed the bloodied rapper out onto the sidewalk. The dispute was allegedly over an unpaid production fee Diddy was owed.
1998: Attack on Steve Stoute: One year removed from the tragic death of his close friend and Bad Boy Records signee The Notorious B.I.G., Sean “Diddy” Combs and two associates stormed into record executive Steve Stoute‘s New York City office and chose violence. The attack, which found Stoute being assaulted with a phone, an office chair and a champagne bottle, occurred after Diddy took heavy offense to seeing himself depicted as Jesus Christ being crucified in the music video for Nas’ “Hate Me Now.” Combs had previously requested that the crucifixion scene be removed from the video. Diddy was arrested, convicted and sentenced to an anger management therapy session.
1999: Shooting at Club New York: While partying with his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez at Manhattan’s Club New York in December of 1999, Diddy was involved in an altercation in which he knocked a drink out of a man’s hand. Things then escalated with former Bad Boy rapper Shyne pulling a handgun and firing two shots inside the nightclub leaving three people injured. After fleeing the scene, Diddy was apprehended by police and was later tried for illegal possession of a concealed weapon. He was eventually acquitted of the charges while Shyne, who now claims to have been Diddy’s fall guy, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on assault and gun charges. Despite Diddy’s acquittal, Natania Reuben, a woman who was shot in the face during the melee, maintains as recently as this year that Combs is the one who fired the shot.
2000: Alleged Attack on Shakir Stewart: In 2000, on the night of Epic Records Chairman and CEO L.A. Reid’s wedding in Italy, Diddy reportedly broke a chair over late record executive Shakir Stewart‘s head. According to a 2023 interview with The Art of Dialogue, former Bad Boy Records artist Mark Curry claims Combs violently attacked Stewart for becoming romantically involved in a relationship with Kim Porter, who birthed three of Diddy’s children. Stewart’s mother recently told Rolling Stone that during the incident, Diddy threatened Shakir’s life and “left him bleeding on a hotel floor in Italy.”
2003: Accused of Threatening Former Business Partner With Baseball Bat: Kirk Burrowes, co-founder and former president of Bad Boy Records, filed a lawsuit against Diddy in 2003 alleging that Puff threatened him with a baseball bat while forcing him to turn over his stake in the label. The incident reportedly occurred in the late 1990s around the time Burrowes was removed from his position at Bad Boy. After the lawsuit was dismissed due to the claim being beyond the statute of limitations, Burrowes sued Diddy again for the same reason in 2006 to no avail.
2011: Keefe D Claims Diddy Hired Him to Murder Tupac Shakur: From the moment Tupac Shakur was shot in September of 1996 and died a week later, many people throughout the hip-hop space suspected that Diddy was involved in some way due to both parties being on opposite ends of the East Coast vs. West Coast beef. However, in 2011, a confession from Los Angeles gang member Duane “Keefe D” Davis found Diddy officially implicated in the murder for the first time. In a recording of the confession obtained by LA Weekly, Keffe D claimed Diddy offered him $1 million to kill Tupac and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight.
While Sean Combs has never been arrested or charged for any involvement in Tupac’s murder, Keefe D has maintained his accusations aimed at Puff through various interviews in the years since. In September of 2023, Keefe D was arrested and charged with obtaining the weapon allegedly used by his late nephew Orlando Anderson to kill Shakur. Davis was also allegedly present during the murder and is set to stand trial in November of this year.
2011: Altercation With Kenny Burns Over Vodka Brands: During an afterparty following the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta, Diddy was involved in an altercation with popular television and radio personality Kenny Burns at Compound nightclub. Video footage of the incident shows Diddy calling out Burns, who was endorsing Grey Goose vodka at the time, for not drinking Puff’s Ciroc brand. While on stage, Diddy insults and threatens to smack Burns before throwing an object in his direction. T.I., who was celebrating his recent release from prison at the party, hopped on the microphone to diffuse the situation, telling Diddy to “let them n***as drink what the f**k they want.”
2012: Accusations of Blowing Up Kid Cudi’s Car: As part of Cassie’s physical and sexual abuse lawsuit in November of 2023, the singer accused Diddy of being responsible for blowing up Kid Cudi’s car in 2012. After Cassie explained in the suit that she stayed at Kid Cudi’s house following a violent run-in with Puff, Diddy allegedly told her that he was going to blow up the rap-crooner’s car. Shortly afterward, Cudi’s vehicle exploded in his driveway, which a spokesperson for Kid Cudi confirmed in an account to The New York Times.
2013: Alleged Fight With J. Cole: As hip-hop folklore has it, Diddy and J. Cole were involved in a physical altercation during an afterparty for the MTV Video Music Awards in 2013. Although fist fights are notably out-of-character for J. Cole, and both parties denied the rumors immediately afterward, Cole acknowledged the “scrap with Puff Daddy” on his 2021 track “Let Go My Hand,” which actually features Diddy on the outro. One month after the song dropped, Diddy and J. Cole jokingly posed in a photo together on Instagram with each holding their fists up in a fighting stance. While the photo was seemingly taken in jest, it could be perceived as further confirmation that the 2013 fight did indeed happen.
2014: Allegations of Punching Drake: Diddy allegedly punched Drake in December of 2014 outside of LIV nightclub in Miami during a party thrown by DJ Khaled. The fight reportedly occurred after heated words were exchanged over the rights to Drake’s 2013 song “0 to 100.” Despite reputable reports from both Page Six and the Miami New Times, which include eyewitness accounts, Combs denied the incident in an interview with The Breakfast Club shortly afterward, claiming, “I didn’t do nothing to Drake. Drake is my friend.”
2015: Accusation of Dangling a Woman Over a Balcony: In December of 2023, songwriter and Tiffany Red wrote an open letter to Diddy that was published by Rolling Stone in which she corroborates many of the claims filed in her close friend Cassie’s abuse lawsuit. One particularly violent allegation finds Red accusing Diddy of picking up another one of Cassie’s friends and dangling her over a balcony on the 17th floor of a hotel in 2015. Red alleges the incident happened during Cassie’s birthday celebration that year after Diddy and the singer returned to the hotel following one of the mogul’s “freak off” parties.
2015: Assault on UCLA Football Coach: In June of 2015, while Diddy’s son, Justin Combs, was playing football for the University of California Los Angeles, the Harlem rapper-producer attacked Assistant Coach Sal Alosi with a kettlebell. After Puff witnessed Alosi shouting at Justin on the practice field, he confronted the coach in his office where the fight went down. Diddy was arrested and charged with assault later that day. However, he was cleared of any criminal charges in September of that year.
2019: Accused of Beating Model Gina Huynh: After being romantically involved with Diddy on and off for five years beginning in 2014, fashion model Gina Huynh accused Diddy of physical assault. In a 2019 interview with Tasha K, Huynh recalled one particularly violent incident in which she alleged Combs threw her to the ground and “stomped” on her stomach before grabbing her by the hair and punching her in the back of the head. After the Tasha K interview went widely unnoticed, Gina Huynh has since remained silent on her relationship with Diddy. Most recently, she declined a comment to Rolling Stone on the matter.
Read More: An Ongoing Complete List of All the Allegations Against Diddy
Diddy’s Violent Moments Come to Light Amid Various Lawsuits and Allegations
Over the past six months, Diddy has been the subject of seven lawsuits in which he is accused of sexual assault and a litany of other violent acts.
The suit filed by Cassie in November of 2023 was settled out of court within 24 hours but made way for several other suits containing similar accusations including filings from producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones and an unnamed woman who was allegedly raped as a teenager. The most recent lawsuit against Sean Combs finds him being sued by April Lampros, a woman who claims she was drugged and sexually assaulted by Diddy multiple times while attending New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology in the mid-1990s.
There is no question that Diddy’s business acumen and decades of work helped transform hip-hop culture into the global phenomenon it is today. However, his current legal woes, along with the damning hotel footage that proves he assaulted Cassie, shine a new light on the Bad Boy Entertainment founder’s checkered history with violence.