Rap Moguls Behaving Badly: 7 Black Entertainment Biz Stars at Their Worst
4. Diddy Assaults Steve Stoute With a Champagne Bottle
Lots of terms have been used to describe Sean “Diddy” Combs over the years, but “gangsta” isn’t one of them. One notable exception would be the Bad Boy CEO’s puzzling 1999 beatdown of Nas’ manager Steve Stoute (see above together in happier days). Combs was apparently unhappy when Stoute reneged on a promise to edit out a questionable scene in Nas’ “Hate Me Now” video, and so took matters into his own hands, literally. Combs allegedly went to Stoute’s office and “administered a street-style beat-down,” during which he “punched Stoute repeatedly, and beat him with a telephone and champagne bottle.” You can’t make this up. Combs was hit with a felony assault charge, but beat the rap when Stoute agreed to settle out of court for a reported half-million-dollar payout . Take that, take that!
