Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Was ‘Scared to Death’ When Andre Harrell Fired Him for ‘Bothering People’

In 1993, Andre Harrell fired Sean “Diddy” Combs from his role at Uptown Records. Diddy had been Harrell’s protégé and he quickly rose through the ranks at Uptown. Despite his outward success, many of Uptown’s employees disliked him. Harrell eventually fired him, leaving Diddy feeling lost and afraid. 

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs didn’t know what to do when Andre Harrell fired him

In 1990, Diddy began an internship at Uptown Records. He quickly rose through the ranks, though not without controversy. Before long, other employees encouraged Harrell to fire Diddy. They reportedly referred to him as “Satan” and flipped him off when he walked past. Eventually, Harrell gave in to the pressure.

“I’m gonna fire Puff, he’s getting a little too big for himself,” Harrell reportedly said, per Rolling Stone. “He’s bothering people.’”

Diddy said his firing left him reeling.

“I cried for a couple days and felt like I wanted to jump off a building,” he told Rolling Stone in 1995. “I think at times I was hard to work with … Possibly I was doin’ s*** that an a**hole would do, just abusing the power. But that was only a little bit of the time.”  

He compared the feeling of getting fired to going through a divorce. Uptown Records had been an important part of his life and it was suddenly gone.

“I was scared to death,” he told Rolling Stone in 1997. “Even though I had every label calling me, I was scared to death, because that’s like getting a divorce, like when you’re used to being with that person every day. It’s just so crazy.”

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs shared why he thought Andre Harrell fired him

Four years after his firing, in 1997, Diddy said his growing ambition led to him losing his position.

“At first, Andre was just there for me with everything,” he said. “He put his faith in me, and we had a great time. What started to happen is, I started to have other dreams.”

While he admitted he was getting on Harrell’s nerves, he thought the power struggle led to him losing his job.

“At the same time, Uptown was growing and getting bigger, and Andre was having to deal with corporate concerns,” he said. “I couldn’t understand that from the creative side, so I started getting on his nerves and bugging out and being real rebellious. It became a situation where it was two kings in one castle, and it was his castle, so I found myself in the moat.”

He founded Bad Boy Records after he lost his job

After Uptown Records, Diddy founded Bad Boy Records. He credited Harrell for giving him the knowledge and experience necessary to do this.

“I knew I wanted to get to a point of Berry Gordy and Quincy Jones, but I wasn’t thinking about how they got at that point,” he said. “I was thinking about what did they do when they was younger. But then, when I saw the contracts and I made those other moves, that’s what made me start looking at the big picture. It was like I was forced to handle a situation, and then I had to grow up real quick. And as I got bigger, I thought, ‘Yeah, I got the power to bring a lot of us together through music.’ And that’s one of those things I have to credit Andre for: He taught me that my music could be a movement, it could be a lifestyle.”