I profiled Diddy. His rebranding as ‘Love’ was a ‘psychopath move’

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. open image in gallery Rapper and impresario Sean Combs, formerly known as ‘Puff Daddy’ and ‘Diddy,’ among other names, has been behind bars since his September arrest on a raft of charges including racketeering and sex trafficking “Absent the money and the star power, I’m not sure we would look at him and think those things, but that’s the kind of story a very scared, self-conscious little boy would write about himself, right?” she says. “But there was a ton of activity I could hear, people, on the second floor … it sounded like there had to have been about maybe a dozen people upstairs.” When Diddy did deign to descend from upstairs, she says, he orchestrated “one of the most deliberate acts of seduction I’ve ever been involved with.” She describes his demeanor as “the way a man flirts with your friend’s mother … trying to charm her, but not in a serious, sexual way.” open image in gallery Combs, pictured in court with his lawyers, has pleaded not guilty to all charges “My sense was he never really engaged with a woman like me, someone who didn’t really need anything from him,” she says. “And I like to think I’ve talked to some strange characters in my time, but this was in the top tier of strangeness.” Staff, she says, “didn’t want to tell me their names – so it was that level of just extreme sort of paranoia.” The writer “tried very hard to be deliberate in my word choice for describing the setting, for example, because I did want to try to capture … how clear it was to me, in the moment, that it was very much a performance.” Combs tried to set her up in an outdoor “sexy” situation overlooking his stunning view, calling for staff specifically to bring her a “pashmina” – “so deliberate; he says it because he wants that written down,” she tells The Independent – while gushing about how he loves caring for women and enjoying their company. open image in gallery Combs dated Jennifer Lopez while known as Puff Daddy, then changed his name to P. Diddy, then Diddy, then Love - the final moniker change he explained in his interview with Cottom; the writer believes the mogul’s teflon reinvention days are now over “What was most surprising to me is that my notes match the person she described,” Cottom says, noting “everything from the extreme amount of control to how hard he tried to seduce me” in the interview.