After his arrest in September, a clip of Diddy on The Wendy Williams Show resurfaced, and it is far more unsettling in light of Diddy's downfall.
It's fairly common knowledge that Diddy and Wendy Williams have been at odds over the years, but so much of their feud goes back to the 1990s — and is complicated by one recurring issue.
People have always doubted Wendy Williams, and a lot of what was "alleged" and "unclear" at the time has since become far less muddy, and incidentally, on October 10, Diddy's court date was set for May.
Diddy And Wendy Williams' Hot 97 Firing, Explained
Wendy Williams came to fame in and around New York City as a host and DJ on Hot 97, the area's biggest hip-hop station.
Today, people remember that Wendy Williams "said Diddy was gay," but at the time, the rumors held Diddy was bisexual — in May 2011, a LipstickAlley user explained:
"Wendy Williams actually started [the rumor], in New York in the 90's. She hired private investigators and was going to expose [Diddy].
"Wendy knew who his partner was but Puff ended her career before she brought the guy on her show. Wendy and Puff beef is 100% REAL."
When all of this was going down in the late 1990s, the internet rumor mill had yet to develop, and much of this was localized, word-of-mouth scuttlebutt.
Hot 97 very publicly fired Wendy Williams, who was subsequently exiled to Philadelphia, and everyone was certain that Diddy got Wendy axed for speculating about his sexuality.
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The Ongoing Gaslighting Of Wendy Williams
As for Hot 97, they maintained Wendy's firing was because she initiated or participated in a physical altercation with fellow DJ Angie Martinez.
Angie has long bolstered the story and repeated it in her memoir, whereas Wendy denies the fight in question even occurred.
Angie paraphrased the comments Wendy allegedly made about her then-boyfriend, A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip: "One of my co-workers is dating Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest. Oh, well. I guess some women like men who like men."
Moreover, when relaying the story, Angie suspiciously tends to include one consistent detail — and it's not the only suspicious part of Angie's version of events:
"Everybody was gay to Wendy. Every rapper you could think of in that era, I had heard Wendy Williams call them gay. Not one or two. Like every one of them.
"I lost my f****** mind. Before I knew it, I was swinging at [Wendy]. It was a quick scuffle.
"It took only a few seconds for me to realize that [Wendy] wasn’t really hitting me back — she was just trying to get me off of her."
In addition to the discrepancy between Wendy's story and Angie's story, another detail stands out.
If Angie was "swinging at" Wendy "before [she] knew" what she was doing, and Wendy "wasn't really hitting [her] back," why would Hot 97 fire Wendy over what sounds like "getting jumped in the studio"?
Why fire Wendy if Angie started the fight?
Taken at face value, it makes little sense, but as recently as October 2, Wendy's firing from Hot 97 and Diddy's role in it are still framed as something Wendy imagined:
"The drama between the pair began in the ‘90s when Williams spoke out against Diddy on her radio show Hot 97 on multiple occasions.
"In 1998, Williams was fired from the radio show and has maintained a 'belief' that Diddy played a role in it."
Again, pretty much everyone aware of Wendy's firing in 1998 believed the same exact thing.
Way back in 2001 – when Sean Combs/Diddy was still known as "Puff," "Puffy," and "Puff Daddy," a message board user reiterated what everyone in New York remembered about the beef:
"Puffy was [outed] some years ago by Wendy Williams when she was on Hot97 (she ain't lyin ALL the time).
"He immediately had her thrown out of NY (he had that power, hence her relocation to Philly)...now she's back in NY doin her thing thing."
It further bears mentioning that back in July, the New York Times published a must-read editorial by Danyel Smith, a journalist of somewhat similar standing and with connections not unlike Wendy Williams.
When Wendy was at Hot 97, Danyel was at VIBE magazine (later Billboard), and in her editorial, she told a harrowing story about myriad "menacing encounters" with Diddy after she refused to give him editorial access over a cover story in progress:
"He cooperated up to a point, but eventually his controlling ways took hold. A few days later, Combs wanted to see the Vibe covers before they went to press.
"It wasn’t our policy to show covers before publication, so after I told him no, we heard that he planned to come to our office and force us to show him what we’d chosen — and to make us choose something else if he didn’t like what he saw."
Danyel said Diddy vowed to see her "dead in the trunk of a car" if she failed to comply, before someone broke in and stole servers in an attempt to prevent the issue's publication:
"A couple of servers, which back then were as big as end tables and twice as heavy, had been stolen, and the scuttlebutt was that the theft was an inside job.
"That someone on Vibe’s publishing side had let in movers from Bad Boy. It was almost time to send pages to the printer, and the whole issue was saved on those servers. All the editorial changes. All the pages, with the advertising adjacencies that had been paid for by clients. Gone."
Also, like Wendy, Danyel was stuck in the position of having to continue working with Diddy after those "menacing encounters" if she wanted to prevent her career from being damaged.
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Diddy Went On The Wendy Williams Show In 2017
About 20 years after Wendy's Hot 97 firing, Diddy appeared on her talk show, The Wendy Williams Show.
Diddy and Wendy were cordial to one another, but a newly resurfaced clip has taken on far more sinister tones through the lens of 2024:
In the brief video (clocking in at 16 seconds total), Wendy mentions her son, then 16.
Her exchange with Diddy may have looked innocuous at the time, but between what we know now about Diddy and Wendy's face, social media users have viewed the conversation as a subtle threat on Diddy's part.
The conversation went as follows, with Wendy seemingly losing her train of thought after Diddy interjects:
[Wendy]: "And let me tell you something, as the mother of a now 16-year-old —"
[Diddy, interrupting]: "Mmm hmm, who I met backstage. He's a great – a great young man."
[Wendy, stammering]: " ... thank you."
After Diddy's mention of meeting her son, Wendy was clearly caught off-guard, and didn't regain her composure for a few seconds.
One comment at the top asserted: "That was a threat, [Diddy is] saying 'play nice.'"
Earlier this month, Wendy Williams commented on Diddy's arrest, saying it was "about time."
- Birthname
- Sean John Combs
- Birthdate
- November 4, 1969
- Birthplace
- Harlem New York, NY
- Family
- Justin Dior Combs, Chance Combs, Jessie James Combs, King Combs, Love Sean Combs, D'Lila Combs
- Notable Allies
- The Notorious B.I.G.
- Height
- 5'10"
- @diddy
- Siblings
- Keisha Combs
- Parents
- Melvin Earl Combs, Janice Combs
- Net worth
- $800,000,000
- Professions
- Rapper, Musician
- Source of Wealth
- Actor, Fashion designer, Record producer, Singer, Film Producer, Television producer, Rapper, Entrepreneur, Musician, Screenwriter
- Nationality
- American
