Sean Combs
Sean John Combs, also known professionally as Diddy, is an American former rapper, record producer, record executive, and actor. Born in Harlem, Combs worked as a talent director at Uptown Records before founding his own record label, Bad Boy Records, in 1993. He is credited with the discovery and development of musical artists such as the Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, and Usher, among others.
Combs's debut studio album, No Way Out, peaked atop the Billboard 200 and sold over 7 million copies in the US. Two of its singles, "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" and "I'll Be Missing You", topped the Billboard Hot 100—the latter was the first hip-hop song to debut atop the chart. With his guest appearance on "Mo Money Mo Problems", Combs became the first solo artist to replace himself atop the chart. His second and third albums, Forever and The Saga Continues..., both peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. The collaborative singles "Bump, Bump, Bump" and "Shake Ya Tailfeather" made him the first rapper with five US number-one singles. Following the release of his US chart-topping fourth album Press Play, Combs formed the musical trio Diddy – Dirty Money with R&B singers Kalenna Harper and Dawn Richard to release the collaborative album Last Train to Paris, supported by the single "Coming Home". He independently released his fifth album, The Love Album: Off the Grid, in 2023.
One of the world's wealthiest musical artists, Combs topped Forbes annual hip-hop rich list in 2014 and 2017. His accolades include three Grammy Awards, three BET Awards and two MTV Video Music Awards. He has worked as a producer for other media, including the reality television series Making the Band, and he starred in the films Made, Monster's Ball and Get Him to the Greek. Combs founded the clothing retailer Sean John in 1998, for which he won Menswear Designer of the Year from the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2004, having previously been nominated in 2000. He served as brand ambassador for the liquor brand Cîroc from 2007 to 2023, and co-founded the digital television network Revolt in 2013. In 2008, Combs became the first male rapper to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In late 2023, Combs settled a high-profile sexual assault and abuse lawsuit filed by his former partner Cassie Ventura. Numerous lawsuits regarding sexual misconduct were filed in the following months, with several claimants alleging sexual assault and abuse by Combs between 1991 and 2009. In March 2024, several of Combs's properties were raided by the Department of Homeland Security, and that September he was charged with federal sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution, and racketeering. He pled not guilty and was denied bail three times. His trial began on May 5, 2025; on July 2, he was found guilty of transportation to engage in prostitution, but not guilty on racketeering and sex trafficking charges., he is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution, Fort Dix. On October 3, 2025, Combs was sentenced to 50 months in prison with credit for 12 months time served.
Early life
Sean John Combs was born on November 4, 1969, in Harlem, New York City. His mother Janice Combs worked as a model who organized fashion shows, and as a teacher's assistant. His father, Melvin Earl Combs, served in the U.S. Air Force, worked at a hair salon, and was an associate of convicted New York drug lord Frank Lucas. Melvin Combs probably began working part-time as a drug dealer around 1970. In 1972, at age 33, Melvin was shot dead while sitting in his car on Central Park West. According to a 2010 account by Vibe magazine, Melvin Combs was killed by Walter Grant, a fellow affiliate of mafia-supplied heroin dealer Willie Abraham; "Grant was convinced that Melvin had either ratted out his crew after his arrest—or planned to", although Lucas himself doubted that Combs had, in fact, revealed any information to law enforcement. Sean Combs was two years and two months old when his father died. Combs has a younger sister, Keisha, and grew up in poverty. Janice Combs and her children stayed in upper Manhattan for "several years" after Melvin's death, before moving to Mount Vernon, which is an inner suburb of New York City, located just north of the Bronx.Combs said he was given the nickname "Puff" as a child, because he would "huff and puff" when he was angry. Combs was raised Catholic and served as an altar boy. Sean Combs graduated in 1987 from Mount Saint Michael Academy, an all-boys Catholic school in the Bronx. He played on school football team that won a division title in 1986. In autumn 1987, Combs enrolled as a business major at Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C., but he left after his second year. At college, Combs was known for throwing parties; three classmates also recalled him using a belt to beat his then-girlfriend outside her Harriet Tubman Quadrangle dormitory.
Career
1990–1996: Career beginnings
Combs became an intern at New York's Uptown Records in 1990. While working as a talent director at Uptown, under the guidance of label founder Andre Harrell, he helped develop Jodeci and Mary J. Blige. In his college days, Combs had a reputation for throwing parties, some of which attracted up to a thousand participants. Usher, who lived with Combs for a year in New York City when he was 13 years old, told Howard Stern in 2016 that Combs's lifestyle was "pretty wild" during that time. In 1991, Combs promoted an AIDS fundraiser with Heavy D held at the City College of New York gymnasium, following a charity basketball game. The event was oversold, and a stampede occurred in which nine people died.Shortly after being fired from Uptown in 1993, Combs established his own label Bad Boy Records, which entered a joint venture deal with Arista Records. Combs brought Uptown signee Christopher Wallace along with him to the newly established label. Both Wallace and Craig Mack began recording for the label and yielded mainstream recognition, leading to the former's debut album and the label's first major project, Ready to Die. Combs signed more acts to Bad Boy, including Carl Thomas, Faith Evans, 112, Total, and Father MC. The Hitmen, his in-house production team, worked with Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, Usher, Lil' Kim, TLC, Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, SWV, Aretha Franklin, and others.
Mase and the Lox joined Bad Boy just as a widely publicized rivalry between the East Coast and West Coast hip hop scenes was beginning. Combs and Wallace were criticized and parodied by Death Row Records cohorts Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight in songs and interviews during the mid-1990s. During 1994–1995, Combs produced several songs for TLC's CrazySexyCool, which finished the decade as number 25 on Billboard's list of top pop albums of the decade.
1996–1998: "Puff Daddy" and ''No Way Out''
In 1996, under the name Puff Daddy, Combs released his first commercial vocal work as a rapper. His debut single, "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down", spent 28 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at number one. His debut album, No Way Out, was released on July 22, 1997, through Bad Boy Records. Originally titled Hell up in Harlem, the album underwent several changes after the Notorious B.I.G. was killed on March 9, 1997. Several of the label's artists made guest appearances on the album. No Way Out was a significant success, particularly in the United States, where it reached number one on the Billboard 200 in its first week of release, selling 561,000 copies.The album produced five singles: "I'll Be Missing You", a tribute to the Notorious B.I.G., was the first rap song to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100; it remained at the top of the chart for 11 consecutive weeks and topped several other charts worldwide. Four other singles—"Can't Nobody Hold Me Down", "It's All About the Benjamins", "Been Around the World", and "Victory"—were also released. Combs collaborated with Jimmy Page on the song "Come with Me" for the 1998 film Godzilla.
The album earned Combs five nominations at the 40th Grammy Awards in 1998, and would go on to win the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. On September 7, 2000, the album was certified septuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over 7 million copies. By the late 1990s, he was being criticized for watering down and overly commercializing hip hop, and for relying excessively on guest appearances, samples, and interpolations of past hits. For example, in a 1997 review of No Way Out for Billboard, Havelock Nelson commented: "...the over-reliance on huge swathes of undiluted samples is simply clumsy, lazy, and demeaning to the sources." Also in 1997, Neil Strauss of The New York Times called Combs the "king of sampled hits".
1999–2000: ''Forever''
In April 1999, Combs was charged with assaulting Steve Stoute of Interscope Records. Stoute was the manager for Nas, with whom Combs had filmed a video earlier that year for the song "Hate Me Now". Combs was concerned that the video, which featured a shot of Nas and Combs being crucified, was blasphemous.He asked for his scenes on the cross to be pulled, but after the video aired unedited on MTV on April 15, Combs visited Stoute's offices and injured Stoute.
Forever, Combs's second solo studio album, was released by Bad Boy Records on August 24, 1999, in North America, and in the UK on the following day. It reached number two on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, before being ousted the following week by Mary J. Blige's fourth album, Mary. The album received positive to mixed reviews from music critics and spawned three singles that have charted on the Billboard charts. It peaked at number four on the Canadian Albums Chart, Combs's highest-charting album in that country.