Diddy accused of lying about deadly NYC stampede killing 9 teenagers at charity event

Sean "Diddy" Combs compensated the victims but never issued a formal apology.

While Sean "P. Diddy" Combs remains in jail awaiting trial on serious charges, his past controversies are resurfacing amid ongoing legal battles. Although the fallout from Cassie Ventura's lawsuit is his most significant scandal to date, his first major controversy occurred over 30 years ago.

During the early days of his career, the rapper co-hosted a charity basketball game at New York City's City College, which tragically resulted in a deadly stampede. Despite compensating the victims, Diddy never issued an apology.

The event took place on December 28, 1991, when Diddy was working at Uptown Records. He partnered with rapper Heavy D to organize the game, but the venue was dangerously overcrowded. The gymnasium, which had a capacity of 2,730 people, was overwhelmed by more than 5,000 attendees, with many more outside unable to get in.

In their desperation to watch the game, fans rushed into the gymnasium and became trapped on a staircase. The doors opened inward, causing a bottleneck where 29 people, mostly teenagers, were crushed in the pileup. Tragically, nine young lives were lost in the chaos.

At just 22 years old, this was Diddy’s first public scandal, but he avoided directly addressing the families of the victims. He faced numerous civil lawsuits and was accused of overselling tickets, promoting the event as if the venue could hold 10,000 people, and failing to provide adequate security. However, no criminal charges were brought against him.

The recently released Peacock documentary, Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, revisits the tragic events of that night. It features interviews with those who were there and the families of the victims. While Diddy's childhood friend Lee Davis claimed he helped people and performed CPR during the incident, his former bodyguard, Gene Deal, refuted those claims.

Although no criminal charges were filed, Diddy and Heavy D were held 50% responsible for the tragedy, with City College accountable for the other half. Despite this, Diddy never formally apologized. Jason Swain, who lost his brother in the stampede, commented in the documentary:

“All families settled and were given a settlement amount. We got $40,000 from Sean Combs directly. But he never owned up to it, never just said, ‘I apologize.’ There’s a clip of him saying that it wasn’t overbooked. … That’s a blatant lie. His image is important to him. The lies go back to City College.”

Diddy denied responsibility for the event, instead blaming City College for security lapses, and expressed regret only for being the promoter. During his 1998 court testimony against the college, Combs admitted the tragedy had stayed with him, saying it was something he thought about every day (as reported by The New York Times).