Sean Combs, Neil Gaiman, and the Terrible Power of Secrets – Rolling Stone
Source: Rolling Stone
Sean Combs changed the world for me.In 1997, Rolling Stone flew me to New York to do a feature interview with Puff Daddy, or Puffy, as Diddy was called then. This was not long after the Notorious B.I.G. was murdered in Los Angeles in March of that year, which in turn wasn’t long after Tupac Shakur was murdered in Las Vegas in September 1996. Tupac had previously been shot in the lobby of a Manhattan recording studio in late 1994, ostensibly during a jewelry robbery. There are some who believe Combs was involved in engineering that assault. There are also some — including some investigating officers — who believe Combs was involved in Shakur’s eventual murder.In 1997, nothing was known about Puffy’s now infamous private behavior. Those secrets weren’t even rumors that I encountered. If that news had been known, I doubt Rolling Stone would’ve wanted to talk to him in the same way we did, if indeed they would have wanted to talk to him at all.As it turned out, talking to Puffy proved a problem. I spent hours with him in his Midtown Manhattan recording studio, but our exchanges were brief and cursory. We spent a half-hour in Central Park talking, and I also visited with him on the set of the video for “Mo Money Mo Problems.” Puff had a lot to say when he was willing to say it, but perhaps he didn’t trust me much, or felt the process crowded him.After a few days, I told the magazine I wanted to abandon the story and return to Los Angeles. Puffy just wasn’t that open to the sort of conversation required for a feature article.That afternoon, I went to his studio to say goodbye to his manager. Puffy was there and was a bit pissed with me. He wanted to know why I was disrespecting him. I replied that he hadn’t made himself available enough to substantiate or justify a story. He took me into a side office, where we spoke for a long time. He was forthcoming. When the conversation came around to the night Biggie Smalls had been shot to death in Los Angeles, I asked Combs how security-minded he was about these L.A. appearances. “Oh, there was definitely extra security for L.A.,” he said. “That was based on the vibe — that whole vibe that had been in the media.”
I started to ask if there had been any threats prior to these events, but he shook his head and looked down at his hands, folded in his lap.
“I’ll tell you about the whole night,” he said softly. “Biggie was supposed to go to London that day. He didn’t go to London. Then he was supposed to go to the studio. He didn’t want to go to the studio. He was like, ‘I finished my album. I just want to celebrate with you. I just want to have a good time. Let’s go to this Vibe joint. I want to go there. Hopefully I can meet some people, let them know I want to do some acting.’ That made me proud. He was thinking like a businessman. He wanted to pursue his acting stuff. So, we at the party. He had a broken leg, so he couldn’t walk or dance, so we sitting down. I’m real hyper, so I usually get up and walk around the party. He’s like, ‘Yo, Puff, tonight could you just sit here with me all night?’ And I thought, ‘Cool. We just gonna sit here and kick it.’ I sat there. We kicked it. We had a good time. Everybody’s asking us for autographs, taking pictures. And we was drinking, and listening to records, sitting at the table the whole night. And he was just being nice. He was nice naturally, but he was being extra nice. He was… chipper. You know what I’m saying? He’s proud of himself, talking about how stuff’s going to be when the album comes out, and how it’s going to be better. He’s like, ‘I’m gonna make them love me.’ He was talking about the West Coast. And he was like, ‘I can’t wait ’til they hear that track, “Going Back to Cali,” so they know I ain’t got nothing but love for them.’ He was feeling good, because the power of hit records helped to alleviate a lot of hard times, the shit that you’re going through. He had like a sense of relief that night. He was going to step back into the scene, and be rapping, and be having fun again.
“So the party’s over and he’s still talking, saying, ‘Yo, Puff. It’s gonna be so big this time. I just can’t wait. We gonna really do it.’ And I’m like, ‘All right, we need to get up out of here.’ So we going out to the parking lot, and my car’s in front of his car. I make a right — he’s right behind us. But not right right behind us. We get to a light, and we waiting there for him. And then the car pulls up. Then we cross the light. As we crossing the light, I hear shots ring out. I ducked down. I’m thinking somebody’s shooting — and I’ve been at parties before where people do that, shoot into the air. I’m thinking nobody’s shooting at me, but, naturally, I’m ducking down. And then somebody in my car looked back, said Biggie’s car had been hit. I jump out the car while the car’s moving. I know if his car was hit, he’s still in the car. Because he can’t walk. So I run towards the car. And it’s just him and his best friend. Everybody else ha
Read more: Click here