Diddy has long had a reputation for being a diva at best (and a tyrant at worst), but his behavior on the Saturday Night Live set way back when was the subject of a recent podcast dishfest.
A prominent star of Saturday Night Live's halcyon days in the late 1990s, Ana Gasteyer, recently went on Bowen Yang's Las Culturistas podcast — Bowen is a current SNL cast member in addition to being a podcast host.
Bowen has done his own share of behind-the-scenes gossiping, telling Andy Cohen in an August episode of Watch What Happens Live about the "worst host behavior" he'd seen — Bowen didn't name the "bad host," but Chloe Fineman recently revealed that it was ... Elon Musk.
Based on what SNL cast members say, it seems the disposition of the week's host has a massive impact on whether cast members have a good time or are driven to tears — and Diddy's May 1998 appearance on the show was during his early days as a mogul and power broker.
Last month, we covered a then-recently resurfaced clip involving someone who famously got on Diddy's bad side in the '90s, back when he was known as "Puff Daddy" — outspoken talk show host Wendy Williams, who was a prominent DJ at the time of her first clash with Diddy.
Diddy and Wendy's history is extensive, but in that reporting, we also mentioned a newly disclosed incident involving a Vibe journalist around the same time the mogul was allegedly terrorizing Wendy and the cast of SNL.
In short, it's no surprise Diddy's 1998 SNL appearance was not enjoyable for the cast — and by the same token, we're equally unsurprised that Will Ferrell could not resist poking the bear.
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Diddy Demanded A Closed Set ...
... And Will Ferrell Disregarded It
On May 9, 1998, Diddy was one of two musical guests for the season finale of SNL, alongside Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, and The X-Files star David Duchovny as the night's host.
On Wednesday (November 20), Ana Gasteyer's Las Culturistas interview dropped, and she didn't hold back on Diddy's SNL sins.
Ana said Diddy "of course, shut down the whole building," and that the rapper "demanded a totally closed set" — in performers' parlance, a "closed set" means no one other than those essential to production are allowed to be present.
It's not clear if Ana felt comfortable speaking up due to Diddy's incarceration or if his downfall raised the subject of working with him, but she recalled bluntly:
"You can tell, like, the five a******* in the six years that I was there when they would be like: 'So and so is in the building, everybody stay in your dressing rooms' — which is applicable if you're a presidential candidate. But apart from that, really, [this is] my house."
Ana explained how Will Ferrell pushed back against Diddy's bullying with a bumbling character known as "Ron," at the suggestion of some SNL writers who were equally fed up with the rapper's haughty vibe.
She began:
"[Will] went on down the stairs and he marched right in. I have the video from the control room where Sean Combs is like, rapping … behind him, Ron’s like walking around looking really disoriented ..."
Ana called Will's interruption "the greatest thing that's ever happened," and unsurprisingly, she said Diddy was entirely humorless about the whole thing:
"It is the greatest thing that’s ever happened, because what a deserved person to have their [Led Zeppelin song] 'Kashmir' moment interrupted by Ron. And [Diddy] really did not roll with it. He was very uncomfortable. But it was also just like, the artifice of all that faux importance."
Will told the same story in January 2020, and in that retelling, footage of the comic standing too close to an annoyed Diddy appeared:
In spite of Will's pranking, Diddy returned once to the Saturday Night Live set in December 2010.
- 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
