Sean “Diddy” Combs (Pt. 1): A Nightclub Shooting, a Fatal Stampede, and the Cost of Doing Business

Summary

DISGRACELAND Podcast — Sean “Diddy” Combs (Pt. 1):

A Nightclub Shooting, a Fatal Stampede, and the Cost of Doing Business

Host: Jake Brennan
Date: May 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this gripping episode of DISGRACELAND, host Jake Brennan chronicles the tumultuous rise of Sean “Diddy” Combs—aka Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, or simply Diddy—using a blend of music history and true crime storytelling. Framed as an exploration of the events and behavior that have checkered Diddy’s legendary career, the episode dives into some of the darkest incidents associated with him: the tragic City College basketball game stampede, the beating of a record executive, and the infamous Club New York shooting involving Jennifer Lopez.

Brennan presents these moments not only as defining scandals but also as reflections of a relentless, risky approach to business and fame—the “cost of doing business” in an industry built by hustlers and empire-builders. Through vivid storytelling and pointed commentary, Brennan invites listeners to reconsider the public persona and legacy of Diddy, especially in light of later controversies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Diddy Mythos: Ambition, Risk, and Reinvention

• Diddy’s Names & Brand: Brennan pokes fun at Diddy’s many stage names, ultimately choosing “Diddy” for the episode, noting his musical influence and unprecedented business acumen.
• Business as a ‘Game’: Diddy’s approach to music and entrepreneurship is described as ruthless and risk-driven, inherited from his father, Melvin Combs—a Harlem hustler murdered when Diddy was three.
• Cost of Risk-Taking:
  • The sample lawsuit for “I’ll Be Missing You” (1997), which interpolated the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” without permission, leads to daily payments to Sting—allegedly $2,000/day, totaling over $19 million by 2023.
  • Brennan emphasizes: “You gotta bet big to win big. Diddy is a businessman first. And every move he makes… is calculated to make him even richer.” ([07:22])
• Hustler Roots: Comparison between Diddy’s ambitions and those of music moguls like David Geffen, contrasting his father’s criminal hustle with Diddy’s legal one.

The City College Stampede, 1991 ([19:10] – [27:15])

• Event Description: Charity basketball game Diddy promoted with Heavy D—massive overcrowding (5,000 people in a 2,700-capacity gym) leads to chaos.
• Stampede Details: Doors burst open, hundreds surge in, and with the gym doors shut, people are fatally compressed.
• Result: 9 people killed, 29 injured. Diddy’s career at Uptown Records nearly derailed.
• Quote: “It was something he had to deal with. A tragic mistake from which he had to learn… the only way out. Through.” ([21:52])

Building Bad Boy Records & The Empire ([23:20] onward)

• Fired by Uptown Records in 1993 for being a “threat,” Diddy takes the Notorious B.I.G. with him to found Bad Boy Records out of his mother’s house.
• Rise to dominance: Bad Boy’s swift success, Diddy’s relentless work ethic—up to 20 hours a day.
• Strategic partnership with Arista Records’ Clive Davis: Diddy secures $40 million upfront, then asks (and gets) another $50 million.

The Club New York Shooting, 1999 ([02:24], [12:15], [27:15], [31:21])

• Set-up: December 27, 1999: Diddy attends the club with JLo and protégé Shine. Tensions escalate with another patron.
• Incident: Argument, followed by a gun being fired in VIP section—three injured. Chaos ensues as Diddy, Lopez, Shine, and others flee the scene in an SUV, running 11 red lights before being pulled over.
• Police Recovery: Handgun found in the vehicle; another discarded on their escape route.
• At Trial: Diddy faces four counts of illegal gun possession and bribery. Prosecution builds case on witness statements and circumstantial evidence.
• Defense: Diddy maintains innocence—“I do not own a gun. I do not carry a gun.” ([32:35])
• Verdict: Diddy acquitted (“Not guilty”), but Shine is convicted on multiple counts and sentenced to ten years.

The Steve Stoute Beating, 1999 ([37:50])

• What Happened: Diddy appears crucified in the video for Nas’ “Hate Me Now,” despite requesting the scene be cut. Enraged, he allegedly leads a crew to beat Interscope exec Steve Stoute in his office.
• Aftermath: Diddy apologizes. Settlement: Stoute receives $500,000. Diddy does one day of anger management.
• Memorable Quote: “I basically just played myself. I let my emotions get the best of me and I just made a mistake.” ([39:58])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Sting Lawsuit:

  "Diddy wakes up, puts on his pants one leg at a time like the rest of us, and wires 5k to good old Gordo. Or however Diddy sends his money. Maybe he venmos it, I don't know." – Jake Brennan ([06:15])

• On the City College Tragedy:

  “There was nowhere to go. No moving forward, no moving backward. People were trapped, screaming, chest compressed, unable to breathe, they gasped for air. Some fainted—bodies hit the floor, trampled underfoot.” – Jake Brennan ([20:46])

• Diddy’s Self-Assessment:

  "I do not own a gun. I do not carry a gun." – Sean Combs, in trial testimony ([32:35])

• On Business Risks:

  “The real money is in the risks. It’s the only way you get the huge payoff, the only thing separating you from being a winner and from being a total disgrace.” – Jake Brennan ([44:00])

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Timeline of Key Events & Timestamps

• [02:24]: Episode framing—Diddy’s notorious reputation, preview of main incidents
• [07:15]: The “Every Breath You Take” sample lawsuit & its financial toll
• [19:10]: Recounting of the 1991 City College basketball game tragedy
• [23:20]: Diddy’s rapid climb through the industry and Bad Boy Records founding
• [27:15]: The Club New York shooting recap; night’s chaotic events and aftermath
• [31:21]: Inside the trial—testimonies, evidence, and stakes
• [37:50]: The Steve Stoute altercation and Diddy’s reaction
• [44:00]: Reflection on Diddy’s pattern—risks, rewards, and reputation

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Style & Tone

The episode is delivered in Jake Brennan’s signature engaging, irreverent style—a blend of rapid-fire storytelling, pop culture references, and blunt true crime pacing. While not journalistic, it’s deeply researched, peppered with dialogue and dramatized yet rooted in the public record.

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For Further Listening

• Part 2: Continues the story in light of more recent accusations and indictments against Diddy, using new legal documents and deeper biographical insight.

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Summary

This episode is a must-listen for fans of music history, true crime, and the blurred lines between genius and notoriety in pop culture. Through the Diddy story, Brennan illustrates how ambition, risk, and moral compromise often co-exist at the top—and how, for some, outrageous setbacks are “just the cost of doing business.”

Transcript

[Jake Brennan]

This is exactly right. Double Elvis.

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[Jake Brennan]

released our episode on Sean Diddy Combs, the episode that you're about to listen to back in the winter of 2023 and we had that episode ready to go after a couple months of production, like we do most of our episodes, we knew what the story was going to be about. It's going to be a look at Diddy through the lens of the crimes that had checkered his rise to fame up to that point, the crimes that we knew about. Then the news of Cassie Ventura and the accusations that Cassie had made broke right before we were to release this episode on Sean Diddy Combs. Our first episode on Diddy and what Cassie Ventura was accusing Sean Combs of had absolutely nothing to do with our story because we didn't know about it, so we didn't know what to do. We. We were like, this makes no sense now. So we ended up releasing the episode. I think we waited a week or two before we released it, and we just, you know, told our listeners what was going on. Like, hey, we had this in the can. And now it kind of makes sense, because despite whatever anyone knew or thought they knew about Sean Combs at the time and his relationship with Cassie Ventura, everything that's in his backstory, everything about Diddy's past, the nightclub shooting involving JLo, which is what this episode focuses largely on. The charity basketball game where nine people died, Even the money that Diddy pays Sting every day. A fact that, by the way, people continue to deny, but that Sting is on record, on video, confirming all of this information, all this stuff from Diddy's past. It goes a long way in helping all of us understand the man who, at the end of 2023, was starting to be accused of unimaginable behavior in crimes. My thinking at the time was, yeah, I 100% believe what Cassie Ventura is accusing Diddy of, because I know exactly who this guy is. And making this episode had a lot to do with that understanding. Of course, once the Cassie Ventura indictment was later released, it provided us with an incredible roadmap to follow to put together part two of our Sean Combs story, which we're also rewinding this weekend. And I encourage you to listen to that right after you listen to this. Part one. You think you know the depths of this dude's violent and depraved behavior because of the headlines, but the indictment tells a very vivid story, and we bring it to life in a way that you're. You're not going to hear anywhere else. So without further blah, blah, blah, here is part one of our Sean Diddy Combs story. Make sure you stick around for part two. Coming up, right after Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Sean Diddy Combs are insane. He was the promoter for a charity basketball game where nine people were crushed to death during a stampede. He allegedly delivered a savage beatdown to a record executive. He fled the scene of a shooting at a Manhattan nightclub in a Lincoln navigator that ran 11 red lights before it was pulled over by the NYPD. He was subsequently charged with illegal possession of a gun and bribery charges that threatened to send him to prison for 15 years. He did all these things while simultaneously building one of the most dominant empires in hip hop. A record label and a brand that commanded top dollar and defined the commercial apex of the genre in the mid to late 1990s. And when it came to defining himself, the game changing music mogul went by many names. Puff Daddy, Puffy P. Diddy. Personally, I'm partial to Diddy, so that's what I'm gonna say. Because Diddy made great music. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called sock hop bop mk2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to independent women. Part one by Destiny's Child. And why would I play you that specific slice of I bought it cheese. Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on January 29, 2001. And that was the day that Sean Diddy Combs, one of the most powerful players in the game of hip hop, went on trial for his involvement in a nightclub shooting that left three people injured. On this episode, a stampede, a beatdown, a nightclub shooting. I Bought it Cheese and Sean Diddy Combs. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. $5,000 a day, every day. That's what Sean Diddy Combs has to pay Sting in perpetuity. Forever again. Every single day. Forever. Sean Diddy Combs has to pay Sting $5,000. $5,000 a day, every day, forever. Because in 1997, back when Diddy was still calling himself Puff Daddy, he used a sample of and the melody from Every Breath youh Take, a song by the rock group the Police, for his own song, I'll Be Missing youg. Every Breath youh Take is one of the biggest songs of all time. And Diddy used it without getting permission from the songwriter, which, as the Beastie Boys can tell you, is an expensive way to do business. The guy who wrote Every Breath youh Take, of course, is Sting, a guy who likes to be compensated not only for the songs he writes, but for when those songs are used by other artists. Which is why today and tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, Diddy wakes up, puts on his pants one leg at a time like the rest of us, and wires 5k to good old Gordo. Or however Diddy sends his money. Maybe he venmos it, I don't know. But in all seriousness, I'm betting his management takes care of it. However, it's done. $5,000 a day. So let's do the math. That's $35,000 a week, $150,000 a month, 1,825,000 a year. All because Diddy chose to sample first and ask questions later. Hold up. I'm being told that Diddy said he was just joking when he threw out the $5,000 a day number on Twitter. So let's use another number, a number that Sting threw out there during an interview a few years back with my man charlamagne. Tha God. $2,000 a day. That's what Sting said it was. Two grand a day. There have been 9,715 days between May 7, 1997. The day the Puff Daddy single I'll Be Missing you was released in today, December 12, 2023. 9,715 days. Multiply that number by $2,000 a day. And even by Sting's more conservative estimate, he has earned $19,430,000 in the last 26 years from Diddy alone. And you know who doesn't care? Diddy. It's the cost of doing business. The cost you got to pay if you want to be the boss. And as any successful boss knows, you got to bet big to win big. Diddy is a music producer and a rapper, but he's a businessman first. And every move he makes, pardon the pun, is calculated to make him even richer. He has drive, determination, and swag. Three things that he got from his father. A father he never knew. Melvin Combs. He was a hustler. Bought kilos from original American gangster Frank Lucas and chopped them up with Willie Abraham's crew. Willie was a magnet for the feds. Melvin kept hustling under the watchful eyes of gman. But at a certain point, you can only hustle so far. You can only go so deep. There's always a floor you hit. Even in the deep end, there's always a limit. And when you reach that limit, when you hit that floor, it can all end real quick. Melvin's floor came at him fast. A speeding bullet, point blank. While he was sitting in a Parked car in Harlem. That was 1972. Diddy was just three years old when his father was murdered. Even though he barely knew him, the memory of Melvin Combs inspired Diddy to be a good son. A son who worked harder, who made better choices. A son who was like his father in spirit, even if he didn't fall into the same line of work. Diddy wasn't a hustler, at least not in the way his father would understand. He was an entrepreneur and an entertainer. But not just any entrepreneur. And not just any entertainer. A music mogul like David Geffen, only bigger. Diddy didn't want to be Frank Lucas. Diddy wanted to be Frank Sinatra. The black Sinatra. And if you're that big, you take risks. Comes with the territory. You take melodies and songs from guys like Sting. The risk is worth it. The proof is in the numbers. The bottom line. By 1999, two years after Diddy released the Sting sampling song I'll Be Missing youg in memory of his musical partner in crime, the Notorious B.I.G. diddy's label, Bad Boy Records, was a juggernaut. 250 to $300 million a year in business, depending on who you asked. 400 employees. Diddy's own worth was 35 miles. He had a clothing line, a chain of restaurants, a magazine for upscale urbanites, two Bentleys worth 300k each and a pad in the Hamptons. Go ask Frank Sinatra's ghost, he'll tell you. Two grand a day to guys like this is nothing. Chump change. The real money is in the wrists. It's the only way you get the huge payoff. Frankie knew wrists, and Frankie caught heat for some of those wrists. But old blue eyes never caught heat like this. Not like Diddy. Frank Sinatra never hurdled himself into the backseat of a Lincoln Navigator around three in the morning, the sound of gunshots that had been fired inside a packed nightclub still ringing in his ears. Complete and total. Holy fuck. Panic. Abject confusion. Outright terror. Catching that heat like a cheap fluorescent burning bright above your head. December 27, 1999. Midtown Manhattan. As soon as Diddy was inside the SUV, he slammed his door shut and the driver mashed his foot on the gas pedal. The Navigator tore down West 43rd. The driver had a swerve to avoid hitting a police cruiser with its dome light flashing. Diddy looked over at Jennifer Lopez sitting next to him, then to his driver and his bodyguard up front. The expressions on their faces told him this was very real. This was actually happening. The Navigator jumped the curb, hugged a corner, and Suddenly they were on 8th Avenue, heading north. The tires squealed and the engine gargled as they picked up speed. They blew past a red light. And then another. Each one a blur. Just like what happened in the club was a blur. Diddy JLo sequestered well behind the velvet rope VIP with Diddy's new protege, Shine. The kid wasn't Biggie, but then again, nobody was. The music was loud. The champagne was popping. Some guy hovering on the outskirts of VIP was running his mouth. That was nothing new. Guys were always running their mouths. This mouth running turned into an argument though, or so it seemed. It was hard to tell at this hour at this volume. The place was so loud he could hardly think. Not that anyone was thinking. Especially not when the glint of gun metal caught someone's eye. And then the muzzle flash lit up the VIP corner like an M80 in a shoebox. The shots pierced the already deafening hum in the room. One blast, then another. And another. They fired off in no time. The sound of screams followed in an instant. The pulse of hysteria. Bodies pushing and shoving to make it through the eternity that stretched out in of front, in front of them in the exit. The door. The front door just up ahead. A few more steps. Just keep moving. Just push on through. That scene from the club played over and over in Diddy's head as the Lincoln Navigator ran another red light. Police sirens howled in the near distance. Diddy and JLo huddled in the back seat and feared the worst. What the hell it just happened. The were they gonna do now? And where was Shine? The sirens were even closer now and the road ahead was closing in on them like they were back inside the club, fighting to push themselves out, but coming up short. Gasping for air, the driver pulled the Navigator over to the side of the road. Within seconds, NYPD officers surrounded the vehicle. All four passengers rolled their windows down and they were told to step outside. When they did, they were all frisked. JLo, Diddy, Diddy's driver and Diddy's bodyguard. The cops didn't find anything. But then they searched the Navigator. It was there on the floor beneath one of the seats that they found a handgun. And it was then that Diddy found the floor of his own personal deep end. Foreign.

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[Jake Brennan]

There was only one reason to play the game to win. To be the best. Fuck that. Everyone gets a trophy. Bullshit. Games weren't played for fun. Having fun was child's play. Adults played to win. If you weren't winning, you were losing. In its business, the music business, the entertainment business was a game. And it most certainly was then you won that game. Just like Patrick Ewing, or actually, Derek Jeter is a better example. You worked hard, harder than everyone else playing that same game. And you never stopped. 1991. For budding concert promoter and A and R man Sean Diddy Combs, there was always work to be done. There was a venue to lock down, hand bills to print, tickets to sell. And there were ears to bend, palms to grease, security to hire. Working. Not to work, but working to win. That was the only reason Sean Diddy Combs was in this game to begin with. Working hard came naturally to Diddy even back when he was just 21 years old, calling himself Puff Daddy, a quick study who shot up from intern to VP of A and R at Uptown Records, the place he first met a rapper by the name of the Notorious B.I.G. and helped shepherd Mary J. Blige to stardom, all the while working side hustles as time permitted. That hustle, that drive and determination, it was in his blood. He knew the drill. A plan was necessary to win. Whether the game was his father's game, which was drugs, or the game was Diddy's game, which was music. The strategy was the same. Come up with a plan, execute the plan. Learn from any mistakes so that the next time you don't just win again, you win more. But In December of 1991, the charity basketball game Diddy was helping to promote at City College in New York wasn't feeling like a win because nothing was going according to his plan. People arrived at the gymnasium in droves. Thousands of them. 5,000 to be exact. Problem was, the venue only held 2700. They weren't there for our guy Diddy here. Few even knew who Diddy was at the time. They came for the A list. Hip hop celebrities participating in the ball game. Boys to men, Run dmc, Big Daddy Kane. People came game regardless of whether or not they bought tickets. And the line stretched all the way down 138th Street. People standing out in the cold. The whole situation pissed them off. Their anger grew as people began jumping the line, many of them without tickets. People holding tickets began to panic, thinking that the event had been oversold. That just because they had a ticket in their hand didn't mean that they'd be able to get in. So tensions Rose blood broke, boiled, and the orderly line that had held together for over an hour began to fall apart. People argued, they pushed and shoved, and eventually this mass of pissed off, impatient people said it and stormed the building. They tore the front doors right off their hinges. A crush of human bodies entered the lobby like a river pouring from a busted dam. Diddy and his co promoter Heavy D of Heavy D. And the boys thought they had planned properly the for event. 60 plus NYPD officers out on the sidewalk, another 40 private security guards on detail inside the venue, and 20 members of the Nation of Islam known as the X Men, who were tasked with watching the lobby. The space between the outside doors and the inside door is at the bottom of a stairway that entered the gymnasium. But no number of cops or guards or X Men could make sense of the blur of bodies running for the gym. They swarmed through the lobby and then down the stairs. The doors at the bottom of the stairs that led into the gym were shut tight, and those doors only opened inward. So the crush of human bodies at the bottom of the stairs made it impossible for anyone to actually get inside the gym where the game was about to begin. Bodies squeezed up against other bodies, flesh on flesh. There was nowhere to go. No moving forward, no moving backward. People were trapped, screaming, chest compressed, unable to breathe, they gasped for air. Some fainted bodies hit the floor, trampled underfoot. By the time the crush eased up enough to allow the doors to swing open, nine people had been trampled or crushed to death and another 29 were injured. And with New York's collective blame being leveled on him, the promoter Diddy's burgeoning career in the entertainment business was in serious jeopardy. He didn't need the families of the victims to tell him this. He went to bed every night and woke up every morning with the City College stampede on his mind. It was something he had to deal with. A weight, a burden. A tragic mistake from which he had to learn. He also knew that whatever hardship or pain he experienced as a result of the tragedy paled in comparison to the pain that the families were continuing to go through. A pain from which there was no way out. Through that was the only way out. Through. Diddy may have inherited his strong work ethic from his father, but he was not Melvin Combs. He wasn't going to sit here and wait for the inevitable bullet. He was going to navigate away from failure and toward the next success. His bosses at Uptown Records didn't blame him for City College. They knew that he had planned to the best of his ability. And despite those best laid plans, shit happened. No, what concerned Uptown as the years went by was Diddy's full throttle drive. He was a threat. So in 1993, he was fired. Diddy chalked it up as another lesson, not as a loss. He walked and took his friend, the Notorious B.I.G. with him. Biggie was all he had. He didn't even have an office. He formed Bad Boy out of his mom's house in Mount Vernon. And the next year, 1994, Bad Boy released Biggie's debut album, Executive produced by Diddy, Ready to Die. Had an undeniably slick commercial sound matched with raw lyrical prowess. And the combination did gangbusters business certified gold in just two months. Overnight, the Midas touch of Diddy and Bad Boy were in high demand. Diddy didn't sit back and count the green. He kept working a minimum of 14 hours a day. Some days as much as 20 hours. Bet big to win big, it wasn't just about the money. It was about the hustle. Music vet Clive Davis knew this. Clive himself was a stone cold music biz champ who, like Diddy, made it his goal to win despite being fired by CBS Records and who also formed his own label in the wake of that rejection. Clive's label, Arista Records, was on an upswing in the 90s, cementing a partnership with LaFace Records to corner the urban music market. But Clive wanted more. An even bigger win. He wanted Diddy in Bad Boy. And it will cost him 40 million up front. Clive didn't hesitate. Three years later, after Biggie's Life After Death double LP, after Diddy's debut, after the huge success of I'll Be Missing you, Diddy doubled down. He went to Clive and asked for another 50 million advance on future earnings. Clive paid and Diddy went to work. The next year, 1999, six years after he was fired from Uptown and eight years after the City College stampede, deep into the holiday season on December 27, Diddy was still working. And he was working hard. But not on concert promotion, not on music production, not on mergers and acquisitions. He was working the room,

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holding court

[Jake Brennan]

in the VIP section of Club New York in midtown Manhattan. As a musical pounded, bodies grinded on the dance floor and champagne flowed. JLo on his arm, Protege Shine by his side and Benjamin's in the bank. But things were changing. The new millennium was on the Horizon. The Notorious B.I.G. was dead and Diddy was a cheeseball hack. At least that's what people were saying. His second solo album, Forever, did well on the charts, but laid bare the fact that Diddy's strengths weren't the same strengths possessed by his close confidant Biggie Smalls. Rest in peace, Diddy read all about it and heard all about it, too. In the papers, the press, and out in the streets, in the club. All the love and all the hate, all the accolades and all the trash talk. Even here in a space that should have been safe, a space cordoned off for winners only. It was like Big said, man mo money, mo problems. Problems like this fucking guy over here picking a fight just because Diddy was Diddy. But why? Because Diddy worked. Because he made money. Because he was a quote, cheeseball hack. It was all confusing. So was what happened next. The guns coming out, the shots ringing loud, one woman screaming as blood spurted from her nose. The smoke from a 9 millimeter spiraled into the air and caught the light of the strobe. There was no time to think, only time to react, to move to work. And right now, working meant heading for the nearest exit and praying to God that whatever just happened, it was a simple mistake that could be explained and overcome on this long and bumpy road to victory.

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[Jake Brennan]

Word, word, Word.

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[Jana Kramer]

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[Jake Brennan]

The line of hopeful spectators standing outside the State Supreme Court in Manhattan wasn't moving. Rubberneckers eager to snag one of the few remaining seats in the courtroom's gallery were beginning to realize that they had little chance of that happening inside. The courtroom was packed with people, all of them focused on one man straight ahead. Diddy shifted uncomfortably in his seat at the defense's desk, nerves at 10 but otherwise dressed to the nines. Custom suit, necktie, cufflinks as slick and shiny as one of his signature chart topping beats. The charges before him were serious. Four counts of illegal possession of a gun, one count of bribery. The consequences for those charges were equally dire. 15 years and prison. 15 years in which he couldn't do the thing he lived to do. Work. Not working meant not making things, and not making things meant not delivering things. And not delivering things meant that Diddy would be in breach of Bad Boy's contract with Arista. And then everything would fall apart for real and fall apart for good. Guys like Clive Davis would shake their heads and keep on winning. Sean Diddy Combs would lose. That is, if the jury found him guilty. There were 60 witnesses in total at Diddy's trial for his involvement in the December 1999 shooting at Club New York. Many of them said they'd seen the same thing, a fight between a man and members of Diddy's entourage. Insults were traded. A wad of cash was tossed to Diddy's face as a sign of disrespect. Then the gunshots went off. Three witnesses said they saw Diddy at the club with a gun that evening. Some, including the woman who was shot in the nose, said that Diddy and Shine were the ones who fired the weapons. The handgun that the NYPD found underneath the seat of the Lincoln Navigator, the car that ran 11 red lights as it carried JLo, Diddy, Diddy's bodyguard, and Diddy's driver away from the scene. That car that they found that gun in, that gun wasn't used in the shooting, but it wasn't a good look. Neither was the other handgun the cops found in the middle of a Manhattan street. Old fashioned police work had sussed that one out. Someone had tossed it from the Navigator's window as it made its getaway. To the prosecution, where there was smoke, there was fire, or rather, where there was a discarded handgun on the escape route that Diddy's Navigator took, there was probable cause. And then there was the case of Diddy's driver. He testified that he watched Diddy stick a gun in his waistband as they entered the club that night. According to the prosecution, soon after they were taken into police custody, Diddy asked his driver to take the fall for the gun found in the Navigator in exchange for 50 grand and a diamond ring. Diddy denied at all the weapon, the guilt, the bribery. He said, and I quote, I do not own a gun. I do not carry a gun. And it was true. There was no hard evidence that put a gun in his hand that evening. He just had to stick to his story. Not just the story of what happened that night, but the story of his life. The story of a mogul, of a man who was David Geffen and then some. The story of the black Frank Sinatra, guilty by association only. The story of a hitmaker, an era definer, an empire builder. The story of a winner. Diddy was convinced that he would be vindicated. But even so, even if he did beat the charges, he wouldn't be able to put this whole thing behind him. Not right away, anyway. Just like the City College stampede still wasn't behind him, that tragedy continued to haunt him, not only in his mind, but in the court system, where a judge had recently ruled that he was, in fact responsible for the events in December 1991 that led to the death of nine people. And the families of those victims had named Diddy in multiple ongoing lawsuits, just like he was now being named in $1.4 billion worth of civil lawsuits filed by the victims of the city New York nightclub shooting. But Diddy had confidence he had swag. He knew this was only a test, a test of his resilience, the cost of doing business. He would emerge victorious. Not because he could see into the future, because he'd done this before. April 15, 1999. Manhattan. Interscope Records executive Steve Stout was rattled. He just hung up the phone in his office on the sixth floor floor. Or rather, the caller on the other end of the line hung up first. That caller was Diddy, and Diddy was pissed. Diddy was pissed. Before Stout even answered, he had a bone to pick with the Interscope exec. He called while the music video for Nas's new single Hate Me now was playing live on MTV for the first time, a video in which Diddy appeared crucified on a cross, a crown of thorns on his head. After shooting the video and before its world premiere on television, Diddy had a change of heart. He felt the crucifixion scene was disrespectful and sacrilegious. Yeah, you think? Diddy was one of the richest and most powerful music men in the world. True. But comparing himself to the Son of God was going a little too far, even for him. He asked Stout, not only president of black music at Interscope, but also Nas's manager, to cut the offending scene out of the video before it was beamed into the houses of millions of Americans. Interscope, on the other hand, had spent an additional $14,000 just to put Diddy in the video in the first place. At this point, his personal convictions were beside the point. The video had been signed, sealed and delivered. Plus, this was the music business. Controversy was part and parcel of the whole operation. So the cut never happened. And when the video aired on MTV, which in 1999 was the unchallenged arbiter for all that was cool and commercially viable in music, Diddy, along with the rest of the country, watched himself strike a Jesus Christ pose like a real fucking herb. He couldn't believe it. What in the actual fuck? What in the actual fuck? Was a question that may have been bouncing around Steve Studd's head after Diddy's phone call. He was still processing the whole thing when his phone rang again. This time it was someone at Bad Boy. They told Stout to get ready. Diddy was on his way over and he was pissed, according to Stout. Minutes later, the door to his office flew open. Diddy allegedly walked in, posse in tow. He didn't say a word. He just went straight up to where Stout was sitting at his desk and decked the Interscope exec in the face. Diddy then grabbed Stout's office phone and proceeded to beat Stout with it over and over, each smash hit driving Stout closer and closer to the ground until he was cowering on the floor, balled up in the fetal position, knees pulled to his stomach, his hands over his head. One of the guys Diddy brought with him picked up a chair and slammed it down on Stout's battered body. Another kicked him over and over. And then it stopped. Stout could taste the blood in his mouth. His jaw and his head pounded with pain. He couldn't move his arm. He opened his eyes from down on the floor and watched as Diddy flipped over his desk, rallied his crew and left. The details of the alleged beatdown of Interscope executive Steve Stout by Sean Diddy Combs come from Steve Stout. Though Diddy turned himself in the next day, and though there is a security camera with footage of Diddy and his crew entering Interscope's sixth floor offices, sources close to him denied the attack ever happened. Diddy has never gone into details about what happened, but he later admitted that he apologized to Stout, saying, quote, I basically just played myself. I let my emotions get the best of me and I just made a mistake. One reason Diddy didn't go into details is because just a few months later, he and Stout came to a gentleman's agreement. In the ordeal, which put $500,000 in Stout's pocket for his role, Diddy was sentenced to anger management class for one day. One day. A slap on the wrist, a minor loss, but in the eyes of a winner, it wasn't a loss at all. It was actually a win. It was all part of the game. A game of risks. Diddy was nothing if not a successful boss. And as any good boss will tell you bet big, win big. March 16, 2001, 6:10pm the judge asked the defendant to rise. Diddy stood up straight, his wrinkled suit telegraphing the wrong message that he was nervous and that he was defeated. Which was far from the truth. Diddy had faith in himself. He had confidence in his ability to perform in this game. The game of business. The game of life. From an early age he had been determined to change that game. First with his good friend Christopher Wallace, aka the Notorious B.I.G. and then with his label in his own solo career, his so called family, a collective of producers and MCs and singers who put their stamp on mid to late 90s hip hop and popular culture. A stamp that left its mark on superstars from Mariah to Aretha, Busta Rhymes and LL Cool J. And JLo and Mace. He had the drive, the determination, determination and the swag of his father, Melvin Combs, a man who, despite being murdered when Diddy was only 3, taught his son lessons about the deep end, about the floor, lessons about one's story, how you tell it, and how you stick to it. And so, after a long seven weeks on trial, Diddy stood in front of the judge and a jury of his peers, not with fear, but with confidence, with the kind of faith that only an ingenious game player and a true game changer can possess. And with that confidence, he received the jury's verdict. The foreman spoke not guilty. Not guilty of all four counts of illegal possession of a gun. Not guilty of one count of bribery. But Diddy's protege, Shine, would not be so lucky. On the same day, he was found guilty of assault, reckless endangerment, and criminal possession of an illegal weapon. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In June 2011, a full decade after he was acquitted of all charges, Diddy settled the civil lawsuit with the three victims from the Club New York shooting. According to the New York Post, which interviewed the nightclub's owner, the woman who was shot in the face received $1.8 million, and the other two victims received $500,000 and $50,000, respectively. If those numbers are accurate, that's $2,350,000. That's more than Diddy paid to Interscope Steve Stout, and, though actual numbers are not known, likely more than he paid for his responsibility in the City College stampede back in 1991. But all those numbers pale in comparison to the reported $2,000 a day he continues to dole out to Sting for Using Every Breath youh take without permission, the $19,430,000 he has invested in that sample to this date. These payouts are all drops in the proverbial bucket. The real money, as David Geffen or Frank Sinatra or Diddy will tell you, is in the risks. It's the only way you get the huge payoff, the only thing separating you from being a winner and from being a total disgrace. Grace I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the Show Notes page at Disgrace. If you're listening, as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland Ad Free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections and early access. Access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on [e-mail] Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla. He's a bad, bad man. All right. Discos don't go anywhere. Part two of our Sean Diddy coma story is coming up right now. As promised, a peek into the mind behind not only the hits, but the violence, the excess, the debauchery and the abuse. Paramount is now the home of all your BET favorites. What? Yes. With all new episodes of Tyler Perry's Divorce Sisters you've always liked a little drama. Plus a whole new world of movies like Gladiator 2. Now I will control an empire. Original series like the Shy. Just make sure we protect each other. And live sports like ufc. Welcome to the history books. New home, same family. Your BET favorites are now on Paramount Plus. Subscribe now. Okay.

[Jana Kramer]

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[Jake Brennan]

Literally. I mean, you could just keep buying new underwear. Not that I've ever done that. Or maybe sort your clothes into piles based on how re wearable or filthy they are. Or just use arm and hammer Deep clean.

[Jana Kramer]

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[Jake Brennan]

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[Jake Brennan]

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[Jana Kramer]

Come clean with arm and hammer Deep clean. Number one claim based on total wash loads sold.

[Jake Brennan]

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[Jake Brennan]

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