Probably feeling pretty good about his decision right now.
Obviously Sean “Diddy” Combs probably isn’t somebody you want to be associated with these days. The disgraced rapper and producer was recently arrested on federal charges of racketeering and sex trafficking following a slew of lawsuits and allegations involving “freak offs” and thousands of bottles of baby oil.
Diddy, formerly known as Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, has been under heavy fire lately, which really picked up in November of last year when a lawsuit was filed against him by his former girlfriend accusing Diddy of rape, sex trafficking and physical abuse.
Since then, numerous other lawsuits have been filed with similar allegations, and earlier this year federal agents raided Diddy’s homes in Los Angeles, New York and Miami in relation to an unspecified investigation. And celebrities who have formerly praised the founder of Bad Boy Records have been seeking to distance themselves from him as more information his come out.
But even before the lawsuits and investigations began, Jelly Roll decided against meeting the famed record exec.
During an appearance on CANCELLED with Tana Mongeau earlier this year, the country superstar revealed that he was offered the opportunity to meet Combs while they were both appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live – but something told him to decline:
“I did Kimmel the day Diddy did Kimmel. And this is the first time in my career, ever, where they said, ‘Do you want to meet such-and-such?’
And I said yeah and I started walking that way. And I was getting down the hallway – this is a true story – I said, ‘Nah,’ and went and got back in the car.”
SMART move.
Jelly also said that at first he made a joke about wanting to meet him, but that it wasn’t well-received:
“I made a joke at first, I was like, ‘Who don’t want to meet the guy that got Tupac killed?’ And nobody thought that was funny so I was like, ‘Ooh, that’s a bomb, maybe I shouldn’t go and do this anyway.’
So I was already skeptical because I thought I had a funny one.”
Now, I’m not going to get too much into East Coast/West Coast rap feuds of the ’90s, but just let me say: Jelly’s right, that joke’s not funny…it’s f*cking hilarious.
He was, of course, referring to the longstanding conspiracy theory (if you can even call it a conspiracy theory anymore) that Diddy, whose Bad Boy Records label served as home to the Notorious B.I.G., was responsible for ordering a hit on rival West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur of Death Row Records.
(If you don’t know the story, look it up, it’s fascinating).
But I digress…
Back to Jelly Roll:
“We were walking and I was just like, I dunno. Very seldom does things rub me in a way where I was like, ‘I don’t even know if that’s a picture I want to have.’”
I think it’s safe to say that Jelly made the right call on that one – even if he wasn’t sure why at the time.