Fourteen years before Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, his Get Him to the Greek costar Russell Brand called the music mogul “very intense.”
“Diddy, he’s new to me,” Brand, now 49, told BlackTree TV in a May 2010 interview. “He looked after me. He took me on an enforced holiday to Vegas. He’s a very intense man because, I think, he comes from nothing and now he’s very, very powerful. People that do stuff like that, they’re intense.”
Diddy, now 54, played record label owner Sergio Roma in Get Him to the Greek, in which Jonah Hill was tasked with getting Brand’s fictional rockstar to a high-profile concert. In between takes, Brand claimed that Diddy encouraged the pair to hang out.
“Now, I like him — he’s very influential — say that you don’t want to do something and Diddy does want you to do it,” Brand recalled. “It’s really hard not to do that thing. It’s a bit like the mindf—ing. He’s very influential. Say, Diddy went, ‘Could you pick me up for the airport? I’ve just got back from holiday.’ Or ‘I’m going away, would you feed my fish?’ … You still do it because you think, ‘Oh, Don’t upset him. He’s an influential person.’”
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According to Brand, Diddy was “a good laugh” regardless.
“Imagine if you get very friendly with him, he might ask you for loads of favors and then you can’t say no, that’s my worry,” Brand admitted. “I’ve become friends with him now, what if he starts ‘Pick us up from the airport,’ ‘Feed the fish,’ ‘Can I borrow your vacuum cleaner?’ It’s going to be pressure.”
After the interviewer quipped that Brand could become “Diddy’s bitch,” the British star denied that title.
“I don’t want to be nobody’s bitch. I’ve worked too hard in life — not even Diddy’s bitch,” he quipped.
One year earlier, Brand posted a YouTube video of the pair’s Las Vegas excursion.
Jonah Hill, Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, and Russell Brand in ‘Get Him to the Greek’
“We are on the plane right now on the way to Vegas,” Diddy said in the 2009 video. “It’s called, ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’ I’m here with my new best friend, right here: Rusty Rocket, also known as Russell Brand. Very, very very dear friend of mine. We go way back.”
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More than one decade later, Diddy was arrested on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. According to a 14-page indictment, the music mogul allegedly “abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him” for decades.
Diddy pleaded not guilty to the charges before a judge denied him bail. The rapper was remanded to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn until his trial.
“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Diddy’s attorney Marc Agnifilo told Us Weekly in a statement earlier this month. “Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children and working to uplift the Black community. He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal.”
Brand, for his part, has not publicly addressed Diddy’s arrest or their current friendship status. Brand was accused of rape, sexual assault and abuse in 2023, which he denied.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).