Sean John Combs, a.k.a. Diddy, has been the talk of the town recently after he was arrested on September 16, 2024, for alleged s*xual abuse, s*x trafficking, and racketeering crimes. The rapper and hip-hop mogul reportedly awaits trial for his crimes while being held without bail in New York.
Sean's career has been shadowed by numerous controversies over the years, including one about the death of his father, Melvin Combs. The rapper's father was reportedly involved with the cartels in Harlem. He was gunned down in 1972 during a drug deal that had gone bad.
At the time, Diddy was only three years old and was made to believe that his father died in a car accident. Sean's mother, Janice Combs, who wanted to keep the rapper away from the same path as his father, reportedly hid the truth from him.
Appearing for an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2006, Sean talked about how he began to uncover the truth about his father's death early on:
"I put two and two together. I noticed that guys from the streets in Harlem always seemed to know my family's last name. 'I used to run with your father,' they'd tell me. All my uncles were street hustlers as well," said Diddy
Diddy's early life and how he unraveled the truth behind his father's death
Diddy was raised solely by his mother, Janice Combs, in Mount Vernon, New York. His mother was reportedly a teacher's assistant and raised Sean as a Catholic. The rapper graduated from Mount Saint Michael Academy in 1987.
A bright athlete in the early days, Sean was part of the academy football team, leading it to a division title victory in 1986. The rapper later joined Howard University as a business major but left by the second year for uncertain reasons.
After rising to fame, he returned to Howard in May 2014 and received an Honorary Doctorate in Humanities. The rapper also delivered the 146th commencement speech.
Taking the stage for the speech, Diddy talked about his father's demise and shared how he decided to look into the matter after finding it fishy:
“ My dad, Mr. Melvin Combs died when I was three-years-old. My mother always told me that he died in a car accident. But something about that it just didn’t feel right. Something was in my soul that was telling me otherwise.”
The rapper, who said he managed to unravel the truth about his father, Melvin Combs' death, at the Founders Library in Washington, continued:
“I used the microfilm at Founders [Library] to search through all the newspapers. And when I typed in my father’s name and the day he died, I read in the Amsterdam News that he had been murdered in a drug deal gone bad.”
Diddy, who grew to superstardom in 1996 with the single Can't Nobody Hold Me Down, has spoken about the controversies around his father's death at numerous events. He never shied away from accepting how dearly he missed a fatherly life.
Appearing at the REELZ show Murder in the Family in February 2020, the rapper said:
"They say you can't miss something you never had, but that's only a little ways right. There's definitely been times as I've gotten older that I've missed my father — his presence — not being here."
Sean further mentioned the struggles of growing up without a father, as he had nobody to take fatherly advice from. Reminiscing about his biggest achievements, the rapper mentioned that he didn't have Melvin Combs around to celebrate and share his major successes.
The lawsuits and allegations against Diddy continue piling up as the days pass. Per a September 25, 2024, report from Vulture, the 54-year-old rapper faces at least eleven civil complaints.
Sean may reportedly face over 15 years of imprisonment if convicted for the high-profile criminal cases. A trial date for the cases against the rapper has yet to be scheduled.
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