Saturday must have been a heavy day to deal with for Sean “Diddy” Combs. Not only did Eminem rip the disgraced hip-gop mogul’s name thrice in his latest album, “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace), on July 12, the “Bad Boy for Life” again made it to the headlines for allegedly viciously threatening the former Vibe Magazine editor-in-chief.
Danyel Smith penned a personal essay for the New York Times on Saturday, claiming the producer, who’s already embroiled in several contentious legal battles, once purportedly threatened to see her “dead in the trunk of a car.”
According to Smith’s recollection of the incident, she and the Bad Boy Records founder got entangled in a disagreement over his December 1997/January 1998 double-issue cover.
Smith’s NYT story, “I Knew Diddy for Years. What I Now Remember Haunts Me,” primarily looks back on her own life as a woman in the music industry and drags Diddy “and others” for perpetrating “inescapable sexism.”
Presumably, Smith mustered up the courage to put her side of the story into words after witnessing several other parties attempting to hold him accountable for his alleged distasteful misconducts, including possible grooming, sexual assault, sex trafficking and much more.
The veteran magazine editor also shared her personal piece of writing on social media. “Took me near 30 years to write this essay for @nytmag — i’m sad. and i’m mad. and grateful for support from the brilliant and generous @emilwilbekin @ava_chin @jessewashington19 as well as my patient and genius editor @nielaorr 🙏🏽 thank you @macdowell1907 🙏🏽 thank you @elliottwilson,” she wrote on Instagram.
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However, unlike the major accusations of a sexual disposition in the grand scheme of Diddy’s fall from grace, Smith’s exchange with Diddy in July 1997 was something that transpired on the professional platform. Describing the incident as “insidious,” something that “broke” her brain, considering how it demonstrated the “way dynamic and domineering moved in our heyday.”
What happened between the veteran journalist and Diddy, recalled by Danyel Smith
According to the timeline purported by Smith, the incident came at the heels of hip-hop icons Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.’s murders when the American journalist was named the editor-in-chief of the music magazine Vibe.
Combs was the cover star of the then-magazine double issue. The photoshoot was inspired by the 1978 Warren Beauty movie “Heaven Can Wait” poster, which depicted Diddy in white angel wings. However, akin to the unsettling revelations ahead, the split cover was to feature antithetical motifs—“one with heavenly signifiers and another with hellish ones.”
Once the shoot successfully wrapped up, Diddy requested access to the covers before they went to press. “It wasn’t our policy to show covers before publication,” Smith remarked. As a result, denied him permission to see the covers, but soon, she heard that the rapper would be coming back to their office, leaving them with no choice but to show him their final picks for the cover – possibly even “make [them] choose something else if he didn’t like what he saw.”
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Shortly after, Combs rang up the journalist’s office. “It was then that Combs told me, as I’ve retold hundreds of times over the years, that he would see me ‘dead in the trunk of a car.’”
Smith told him “to take that threat back.” However, he reportedly replied, “Take what back?” following up with a “vile laugh” and “[Expletive] you.”
According to Smith, he further threatened her, saying, “I know where you are right now. Right on Lexington.” Eventually, she threatened legal action, but her words didn’t have any effect on the rapper. Within two hours of her reaching out to her attorney, Combs faxed her an apology.
Soon after those threatening encounters with Diddy, Smith walked into her office one day only to find out that a couple of their servers had been stolen from the office. It turned out, that the magazine issue with Diddy as its focus was also saved on one of these servers, causing suspicion that Diddy’s agency was possibly responsible for what had happened.
Ultimately, Vibe’s art director came to the rescue, having saved the issue on a disk.
Smith’s report came to light over a week after model Adria English filed a lawsuit against Diddy on July 3, stating that after being employed by the producer in 2004, she was “groomed… into sex trafficking over time.”