While disgraced hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs spends his days in a jail cell, details of his past romantic entanglements have begun to resurface. Of all his serious relationships, the longest was with model and actress Kim Porter, who died of lobar pneumonia in Nov. 2018. The pair began dating in the early ’90s and became a serious item in 1994. But their romance wasn’t without its ups and downs.
Speaking to Essence, Porter talked about how the singer cheated on her with pop star Jennifer Lopez while she was pregnant with their son Christian in 1997. According to the actress, it was a friend who first heard whispers about the affair before the news hit the press. Porter found the scrutiny extremely difficult since she had always been a private person who preferred to focus on her family as opposed to chasing fame.
“Everywhere I went, people were asking, ‘Are you okay?’ I just hated that,” Porter said. “People just believed everything they saw in print, and they were talking to me like I was really crushed. But I had just had a baby. I couldn’t be somewhere in a corner, heartbroken. I have kids. I’m a grown woman.” The actress was taking it so well that her mother, Sarah, was a little concerned since no parent would want to see their child in pain, even as an adult.
Diddy’s relationship with Lopez was one of the most high-profile hookups in music at the time. And Porter believes the rapper loved the media attention. “He just got caught up in the hype,” she explained. “And my man is Mr. Hype.” Although the pair dated from 1998 to 2000, Porter said he was never far from her mind. “That relationship wasn’t real,” she explained. “The world just saw the bright lights and the camera. But I knew what was really going on. He was still in love with me.”
Porter offered some insight into conversations she had with Diddy, who called her between “50 and 60” times a day. During those chats, she told him he would eventually come crawling back when he was tired of his “little Puerto Rican” girlfriend. “Sometimes I wouldn’t even talk to him because I was so angry,” she continued. “I couldn’t be ‘nice Kim.’ I had to be, you know, that b***h. Like, this is not going down.” However, Diddy would not leave her alone and showed up at her house constantly.
“It was like my life was not my own,” Porter said. “He was very, very intrusive.” Despite the Manhattan Family Courthouse being brought in to assist with a child visitation agreement, Diddy would still break the rules. “He would say he needed to see his son, but I was at a place where just the sight of him would turn my stomach,” Porter recalled. “My feeling was, you made this decision, now stay over there. I can’t repeat everything I said at the time because it’s really not that ladylike.”
Diddy is currently in federal custody, facing charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. His September arrest in New York follows a wave of civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual assault and physical violence, with some claims dating back to the 1990s. So far, over two dozen people have come forward, alleging that he used his power in the entertainment industry to drug, assault, and rape them. He has also been accused of trying to influence witnesses from jail.
