A former bodyguard says the rap mogul sacrificed a bird for good luck before he went to court to hear the verdict in his trial for a 1999 nightclub shooting.
Combs, now awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, was acquitted on all charges, including weapons possession and bribery, after the bird incident described by former security man Gene Deal in a Hulu documentary about rapper Shyne, Combs’ sidekick who was convicted on all charges, sent to prison for 10 years, and then deported to his native Belize, the New York Post reports.
Former bodyguard Gene Deal told the documentary, “The Honorable Shyne” — now known as Moses Michael Levi Barrow in Belize, where he is the leader of the opposition in that country’s House of Representatives — that Combs was on his way to court in Manhattan when he stopped off in Central Park to meet a man with a caged bird.
“When Puff got close to the guy, he just dropped down to his knees,” Deal said. “Next thing I see, is this smoke just going back and forth around Puff. I guess it was sage or something like that.”
The bird man was holding a Bible and told Combs to take the bird from the cage, Deal said.
“Puff took this white bird and threw it up in the air … The bird just fell to the ground, boom, like it was a brick,” Deal said. “I was like, ‘Oh, s–t!’
“The bird died, man … the bird didn’t even move. [Combs] just walked away from him real quick.”
Barrow accuses Combs of forcing him to take the fall for the 1999 shooting and “destroying my life,” although he’s doing well now in Belize.
Combs, meanwhile, is desperately trying to convince a judge to give him bail in Manhattan and is the subject of multiple lawsuits — from men and women — accusing him of sexual misconduct, as CrimeOnline reported.