If you were Diddy, you'd probably want people to discuss your new vodka line or your perfume or your acting or your inability to stay with women who've just given birth to your children.
In fact, if you were Diddy you'd probably be happy for people to talk about anything at all, except for your alleged role in the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur.
Which is a shame, because that's what a newspaper did yesterday. But for what it's worth, Diddy has vehemently denied all the allegations against him. Hecklerspray would like to add that it had no involvement in Tupac's 1994 shooting either. That makes us as good as Diddy, which is why we're about to release our own ropey cash-in perfume as well. It's called hecklerspray: Unjustifiable. Pour homme.
We're worried. There's a disturbing new trend that's taking the world by storm right now, and the government is doing nothing to stop it. The name of this trend? Decades-old celebrity assassination attempts.
It's terrifying. Mick Jagger can no longer walk the streets for fear that someone will kill him 39 years ago, and now Tupac Shakur is thought to be in hiding in case someone shoots him and leaves him for dead in 1994. What next? Will someone stage an audacious hit on Elton John in 1973? Where will the madness end? Where?
Yesterday's Los Angeles Times contained a lengthy article about the 1994 incident where Tupac Shakur was beaten and shot in New York. It claims that the event kick-started the East Coast/ West Coast rap wars that ended with both Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G getting killed. And it's implicated Diddy in the whole messy affair.
That's right – Diddy. Lovely Diddy of I Do (Wanna Get Close To You) by 3LW guest-rap fame. Diddy the booze-hawker. Diddy, the man who can literally punch flames out of people's asses. According to the Los Angeles Times, Diddy had a hand in orchestrating the beating and shooting of Tupac as punishment for Tupac not wanting to join Diddy's Bad Boy record label.
Based on what, you scoff. FBI reports? Statements from informants? Interviews by people who were there as it actually happened? Well, actually, yes. But Diddy isn't going to take this sort of slander sitting down – he's responded with all the force that a quickly bashed-out 63-word statement can muster:
"This story is beyond ridiculous and is completely false. Neither Biggie nor I had any knowledge of any attack before, during, or after it happened. It is a complete lie to suggest that there was any involvement by Biggie or myself. I am shocked that the Los Angeles Times would be so irresponsible as to publish such a baseless and completely untrue story."
As odd as it is for a newspaper to drag up a mostly-forgotten 14-year-old story about a dead convicted sex abuse felon getting roughed up, if Diddy really did have a hand in it then it still counts as being newsworthy, if a little sensational.
But listen to Diddy. Listen to the man! He definitely didn't play any part in Tupac's shooting, no matter what anyone says. And Diddy is a trustworthy man. He might have left his girlfriend right after she had his twins, he might have accepted an advance to write his autobiography then failed to write anything while refusing to hand back the advance and he may have been boning Sienna Miller on the sly, but we'll just say this.
Diddy says that pissing is good. And pissing is good. Therefore we're adamant that he didn't help shoot some bloke a decade and a half ago.
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Mike Belgrove says
We’ve been covering the story with Tupac’s shooting over at Highbrid Nation and honestly I don’t know. I have no doubt that Diddy is a shady character but somehow I just don’t buy that he knew or was somehow involved. I’m gonna be watching this one closly though.