Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs ‘Couldn’t Believe’ It When Suge Knight Called Him Out at an Awards Show

Sean “Diddy” Combs and Suge Knight have feuded for years. Before the relationship between them imploded, though, Diddy said he thought Knight was a friend. Because of this, he said he felt completely taken aback when Knight called him out at an awards show.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs said he was shocked when Suge Knight insulted him

Diddy founded Bad Boy Records and began working with artists like the Notorious B.I.G. and Faith Evans. He wasn’t content with being an executive behind the scenes of their successful careers, though. He wanted fame and attention for himself.

“I distinctly remember the day that Clive Davis called and asked me to start garnering press for Puffy just as if he were the artist,” Bad Boy publicity director LaJoyce Brookshield told Rolling Stone. “Behind his back, I used to call him my problem child, the Notorious V.I.P.”

At the Source Awards in 1995, Suge Knight, the head of Death Row Records, tried to recruit new artists by pointing out Diddy’s desire for fame.

“If you don’t want the owner of your label on your album or in your video or on your tour, come sign with Death Row,” he said, per Vibe Magazine.

Diddy said Knight’s words stunned him.

“I couldn’t believe what he said,” he said. “I thought we was boys.”

Suge Knight shared why he lost respect for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

By 1999, Knight and Diddy had been at odds for years. That year, though, Knight said he lost practically all respect for Diddy. Bad Boy artist Moses “Shyne” Barrow went to prison for his role in a nightclub shooting, but Diddy was acquitted. Knight believed Diddy turned on his artist.

“I would do what I can do to get [Barrow] out,” he told Wendy Williams, per her book The Wendy Williams Experience. “He don’t necessarily have to be an artist on Tha Row, but I would do it because I think that was like one of the worst things that could happen to anybody. That’s when I had a little, little, little, little respect respect for Puffy. The little respect was ‘cause he’s black. After what he did to Shyne —” 

He called Diddy a rat.

“He’s a rat,” Knight said, adding, “I do not like rats. I do not like snitches. I think a rat is the lowest that you can get.”

Wendy Williams thought Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was more dangerous 

Williams knew both Diddy and Knight, and she thought the former was more dangerous. She thought this was because he worked to hide how dangerous he was.

“Don’t get it twisted. In my opinion, Puffy is a very dangerous man,” she wrote. “He may not wear his danger the way someone like, say, Suge Knight — who is six four, and 350 pounds — wears his, but he is dangerous all the same. Suge wears his fear and intimidation, Puffy hides behind his shiny suits, which makes him more dangerous because you don’t necessarily see him coming.”