Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Admitted He Feels Some ‘Responsibility’ for the Notorious B.I.G.’s Death

Sean “Diddy” Combs signed Christopher Wallace — also known as the Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie — in the first year of his record label, Bad Boy. The pair continued to work together up until Biggie’s death in 1997. Two decades after the rapper’s murder, Diddy admitted he felt a level of responsibility for his death. He shared what he wished he could have changed.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs said he had regrets about the Notorious B.I.G.’s death

In 1997, Biggie was killed in a drive-by shooting that still remains unsolved. Diddy admitted that he felt some guilt about this.

“I think I’ll always feel some sort of responsibility because I’m in this thing with him,” he said on The Wendy Williams Show in 2017 (via ABC News). “He’s my artist.”

He added that Biggie planned to travel to London that night, but he remained in Los Angeles.

“He was supposed to go to London that night and I let him talk me into not going to London and staying in L.A.,” Diddy said. “That’s something that really bothered me throughout my life. Sometimes you have to really go with that decision in your gut and in my gut it was like, ‘You need to get on the plane.'”

He said he regretted not working harder to get him on the plane to London.

“This is God’s world,” he said. “It’s his plan but honestly that’s one of the things I regret is not making sure that he went to London.”

The Notorious B.I.G. reportedly had plans to stop working with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

Ahead of Biggie’s death, he was reportedly making plans to move on from Bad Boy Records. According to former Bad Boy bodyguard Gene Deal, Biggie wanted to take a better deal with a different label. Diddy had full control of his publishing rights, which significantly limited Biggie’s income. 

Photographer Monique Bunn corroborated Deal’s account.

“[Biggie] was absolutely about to leave Puff,” she told Rolling Stone. “I know for a fact [because] he told me that.”

Another Bad Boy artist claimed the rapper did not have a fair deal

According to former Bad Boy rapper Mark Curry, most of the artists who signed to the label did not get a fair deal.

“I was in the same spot as Biggie when he signed with Bad Boy,” Curry wrote in his book Dancing With the Devil: How Puff Burned the Bad Boys of Hiphop (via Salon). “After Biggie signed the contracts that Puff forced on him, for example, he walked away with only $25,000.”

Curry alleged that Diddy tried to conceal the unfair deal by giving Biggie’s family money after his death.

“To avoid people finding out just how broke Biggie was when he was killed, Puff announced that he was giving the fallen star’s family several million dollars.”

Several other artists have called out Diddy for his business practices.