Sean Combs
Sean "Diddy" Combs was born on this date in 1970. He is a Black musician and Media producer.
He was raised in Mount Vernon, N.Y. His father, Melvin Combs, was murdered in 1973. His mother, Janice Combs, was a model.
As he had known, "Puffy" Combs began with an apprenticeship as an intern at Uptown Records, a (then) new record company. Puffy convinced founder Andre Harrell to take a chance on him. He was barely 20 years old and a student at Howard University, majoring in business, when he started commuting on the train to Manhattan three times a week.
Puffy constructed the careers of Uptown's Jodeci and Mary J. Blige, starting in 1991-92. In the process, he helped to create a new musical genre: hip-hop soul. In 1994, his collaboration with Blige on her second album, "My Life," produced a classic that spoke to a new generation of youth. That same year, Combs created Bad Boy Entertainment and produced his first successful recordings for the new label, including the debut of his oldest friend, Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace), entitled Ready To Die.
Bad Boy, a successful Black-owned and Black-operated company, was renegotiated as a 50/50 joint venture with Clive Davis and Arista Records in 1995 as Puffy introduced the debut album by Notorious B.I.G.'s wife Faith Evans.
Combs founded Daddy's House Social Programs, an organization to help inner-city youth, in 1995. Programs include tutoring, life skills classes, and an annual summer camp. Along with Jay-Z, he pledged $1 million to help support victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and donated clothing from his Sean John line to victims. He has donated computers and books to New York schools.
Combs is the father of six children. His first child, Justin, was born in 1993 to his high-school sweetheart, designer Misa Hylton-Brim, but the relationship ended in divorce. Later, he was with Kim Porter, and they had one child, Christian Casey Combs, in 1997. One year later, Combs began dating actor-musician Jennifer Lopez; they broke up in 2001. That same year, Combs went on trial for weapons charges stemming from a 1999 Manhattan nightclub shooting in which three people were injured; at trial's end, he was acquitted of all charges.
Combs changed his name from Puffy to 'Diddy,' by {Diddy celebrated Bad Boy's 10th anniversary in 2004, the business had grown into a multi-million-dollar empire. His company had encompassed a music label, the award-winning Sean John clothing line, Justin's restaurants, and a wide array of charitable ventures. Diddy is also building an acting career, appearing in movies such as "Made" and "Monster's Ball," and making his Broadway debut in "Raisin in the Sun." He was a first-time host of the MTV VMAs.
Fortune magazine listed Combs as number twelve on its 2002 list of the top 40 entrepreneurs under 40. Forbes Magazine estimates that for the year ending May 2017, Combs earned $130 million, ranking him number one among entertainers. In 2017, his estimated net worth was $825 million.
In November 2017, Combs announced he would go by Love, stating, “My new name is Love, aka Brother Love." Two days later, he told the press he had been joking, but on January 3, 2018, he announced on Jimmy Kimmel Live that he had changed his mind again and would be using the new name after all.
In May 2017, Cindy Rueda, who previously had served as Combs's chef, filed a lawsuit against Combs in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, claiming, among other things, sexual harassment and retaliation. The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount in February 2019, and more suits followed. Combs was arrested and indicted in the Southern District of New York in September 2024 on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking by force, and transportation for purposes of prostitution. He is awaiting trial in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. His cellmate is Sam Bankman-Fried, who is serving a 25-year sentence. During a court appearance on October 10, 2024, Judge Arun Subramanian set Combs' trial start date as May 5, 2025.
