Suge Knight Smacked the ‘Dogs***’ Out of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, Claimed Keith Murray

Suge Knight and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs have not been on good terms since the early 1990s. The two music industry moguls went head to head with their respective artists, Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. There have been allegations of violence between them, from death threats to physical skirmishes. Rapper Keith Murray claimed he saw Knight hit Diddy in the face at a party. 

Suge Knight allegedly hit Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs at a party

Murray recalled a night at the Platinum House Club when both Knight and Diddy were among the attendees.

“One time, we was at Platinum House … Suge was there, I was there, Puffy was there, and we was all partying and chilling and stuff, right?” he said on The Art of Dialogue (per Vibe Magazine). “It got late, and the night dispersed.”

Murray joined a group of people outside, where he initially said he saw a dead body on the ground. Seemingly misremembering, he redirected and said that he had actually seen Diddy and Knight standing outside. When he walked over, he said he saw Knight hit Diddy across the face.

“Suge was like, ‘You, you all right?’ Puffy was there,” he said. “Then all of a sudden I saw Suge smack the dogs*** out of Puffy. I’m like, ‘Oh, s***! This is crazy!’ Puffy paused, looked at me like, ‘Yo, that’s what I get for being too nice.’”

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was taken aback when Suge Knight insulted him at an awards show

Obviously, this was not a friendly interaction between Knight and Diddy. According to Diddy, though, they had once been on good terms. Because of this, he was extremely taken aback when Knight called out his attention-seeking during a speech at an awards show. 

“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 in 1995, per Vibe Magazine.

Diddy said he thought Knight had been a friend. He couldn’t believe Knight would try to recruit artists by insulting him.

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

He initially wanted to model Bad Boy after Death Row Records

Diddy claimed he wanted no part of the feud with Knight and Death Row Records. When he first started Bad Boy Records, he modeled it after Knight’s company.

“When we were in our beginning stages, Death Row was established,” Diddy told Rolling Stone in 1997. “Bad Boy was kind of modeled after Death Row because Death Row had became a movement. We wanted to model ourselves behind the record companies that were movements, like Motown, Def Jam, Death Row. These were record companies that were the sound of the culture, and we wanted to become another sound of the culture.”

He said that he never could have anticipated future problems with Knight during this time.

“Whenever Suge would come in town, he would come by the office,” Diddy said. “Whenever I was in town, he would come pick me up, and we’d hang out. There was maybe two times I went over to Snoop’s house. It was all cool. No way in the world I could foresee any problems.”