Statements from former Bad Boy Records employees allege that Sean “Diddy” Combs was an incredibly volatile boss. Over the years, Diddy himself has spoken about his short fuse temper. After a brief confrontation with one of his employees, Diddy said he felt so angry that he wanted to light his tour bus on fire.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs said his temper could get the better of him
At a music video shoot in 1999, Diddy asked his stylist to bring him sweaters. Diddy quickly dismissed the options his stylist presented him.
“These look corny,” he said, per Rolling Stone. “Bring me some turtle necks.”
He harshly rejected his next set of options.
“Why he bring me all these mock necks?” he said. “This is hip-hop. I can’t look like a d***head!”
He sent his stylist off again, but quickly followed after him. He grabbed the next set of shirts from his hand, shouted that he didn’t want any of them, and threw them. When looking back on the moment, he said he’d felt so angry he saw red.
“I was just very mad,” he said, adding, “I wanted to burn the whole f***in’ bus. I get to the snapping point sometimes.”
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs admitted that he had always been quick to anger
Diddy said that he has had a temper since he was a child. He said that people began calling him Puffy because of how often he became agitated.
“Whenever I got mad as a kid, I used to always huff and puff,” Combs told Jet Magazine in 1998 to explain his original nickname. “I had a temper. That’s why my friend started calling me Puffy.”
His former employees said he was volatile at work
The former employees at Diddy’s record label, Bad Boy, alleged that Diddy didn’t control his temper at work. Felicia Newsome, who managed Bad Boy’s recording studio, said Diddy flew into a rage because two women were fighting. He said he was about to “beat this girl’s a**.”
“I’m holding him by his waist, saying, ‘You need to calm down. This is not your fight,’” Newsome told Rolling Stone.
Employees did whatever they could to appease him, constantly worrying about sparking his temper.
“He was so volatile,” a source who worked with Bad Boy said. “He’s always on the edge of snapping and being scary. People did whatever he said to stay in his good graces … and Puffy exploited people’s desires to be in those environments.”
His behavior frustrated the people who worked with him.
“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,” publicity director LaJoyce Brookshire said. “Behind his back, I used to call him my problem child, the Notorious V.I.P.”
