Woman who was at yacht party with Diddy looks back at actions that now have 'sinister new meaning'
A journalist who went onto a yacht with Sean 'Diddy' Combs to interview him has said several small details about that afternoon now look different, according to her, given the allegations against him.
The musician has faced a torrent of accusations and is currently jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn as he awaits trial on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering.
Combs has denied the allegations against him and issued a plea of not guilty after he was accused of using his 'power and prestige' to drug sex workers for his alleged 'freak offs'.
US attorney Damian Williams claimed that Diddy 'used the business empire he controlled to sexually abuse and exploit women, as well as to commit other acts of violence and obstruction of justice'.
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A legal statement from Combs' representatives said that 'in court the truth will prevail', adding: "Mr Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone—man or woman, adult or minor.”
His children also released a joint statement criticising 'false narratives' and 'conspiracy theories', making their support for their father quite clear.
A number of new lawsuits have been filed against Combs in recent days, including ones which allege the rape of a 13-year-old girl and of drugging and sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Celia Walden said that when she looked back at a 2008 interview she did with Diddy where her conclusion was that he was 'just plain shy' it now 'actively made me squirm'.
Writing that whenever a celebrity becomes mired in scandal, there will be plenty who met them who will come out and say they always had 'a feeling', Walden said she got that from someone like Harvey Weinstein but not immediately from Combs.
She said that when she spent an afternoon on a yacht with him, she saw a 'philanderer, a narcissist and a control freak' who made her photographer agree not to take pictures that included his bare feet in them, but at the time, believed him when he said he owed everything to his mum and was most concerned with getting as far from his poor origins.
However, Walden also said that she's since looked back at some of the other details from that interview on a yacht, including when he 'snickered when I choked on the industrial-strength cocktail set down before me' and that he 'clearly wasn't wearing any underwear' - which she believes have 'taken on sinister new meanings'.
She also wrote that she was wondering whether any of the 'prone, oil-slicked bodies lying around the deck of that 180-ft yacht' had been participants in the alleged 'freak offs' Diddy is now accused of carrying out.
The interviewer noted that in these situations the person you're speaking to is 'invariably performing for you and obviously on their best behaviour' so it's hard to form a clear picture of them.
She's not the only person who has encountered Combs who is now re-evaluating her past experiences with him.
Celebrity photographer Selma Fonseca said she attended between 20 and 30 Diddy parties, but not the alleged 'freak offs', and recounted a 'scary moment where her camera was taken off her.
She said: "Diddy was in a VIP area, and I saw there was a girl next to him that I had never seen before.
"I took pictures of him with the girl, and he told his bodyguard ‘go get her camera.’ The bodyguard came and said ‘let me see the pictures'.
"Diddy looked at the pictures, and I’m waiting, and he’s pouring shots, having fun. He did eventually give me my camera back.
"He never asked me for my camera, I had been photographing the man for 20 years. It was scary, but he knew better."
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Joe Harker