Inside Diddy’s Parties: Celeb Bashes in 2000s

The venue, a downtown Manhattan membership on a facet avenue thronged with everybody from film stars to wannabes hoping to achieve entry to the social gathering that was nonetheless raging at 3 a.m., had been at capability since midnight. Because the editor-in-chief of Honey, a distinguished journal for city girls, I’d been ushered in lengthy earlier than. Inside, the group — a mixture of artists, music and media executives, style designers, actors, sports activities stars, entrepreneurs and fashions — lounged of their respective pink leather-clad banquettes. Bursts of shimmery mild would periodically illuminate corners of the dim horny room as leggy waitresses in black barely-there uniforms lit sparklers and delivered bottles of Cristal to numerous VIPs. The DJ spun hip-hop banger after banger, and I hadn’t left the dance ground for hours. Abruptly, the DJ lowered the music and our host, Puff Daddy (or Diddy or Love or Sean Combs or no matter you like) bought up on a desk with a mic.

“Everyone relax,” he yelled. “5-0 is in the home.”

I wiped a sweaty curl out of my eye to see males in uniform streaming in as Puff mentioned pleadingly within the mic, “Please, Mr. Fireplace Marshal, please don’t shut down the horny. Have a look at all of the honeys up in right here. You and your boys keep. Drinks on me.”

The hearth marshal was, apparently, uninterested. The lights got here up and the kickoff to New York’s 2001 social gathering season was over.

Now in fact, Diddy’s relationship with legislation enforcement is starkly completely different, as is the as soon as glamorous life he led till only a 12 months in the past. Charged in federal courtroom with intercourse trafficking and racketeering with accusations that embody kidnapping, arson, compelled labor and obstruction of justice, Diddy — referred to in his indictment by his born title, Sean Combs — sits in solitary confinement in a Brooklyn detention heart with out bail, mere miles from the place he staged a few of the most memorable bashes in current movie star reminiscence.

However that evening stays a core early aughts reminiscence for me. It was emblematic of a second in time when hip-hop was at its zenith, a robust epoch during which the city world (music, style, media) drove popular culture in New York Metropolis and world wide. Throughout that interval, a lot of city tradition revolved round events: They formed clothes with high-end designers copying the appears to be like they noticed on the occasions and on the streets; they created alternatives for DJs who rose to prominence as they attracted coveted crowds; they modified the way in which music was put out as the largest labels realized they might create buzz for his or her artists by way of album launch events that rivaled Saturday evening at a scorching membership. That period of city events even modified the way in which we social gathering because it additional popularized roped off VIP sections, bottle service and dear champagne sprayed over revelers. As a former lawyer for a significant music label informed me, “Hip-hop events weren’t solely an expression of affect, they had been affect.”

The progenitor of social gathering tradition, nobody did it higher than Puff Daddy again within the day. Together with his entourage of ballers and video vixens, his retinue of safety, his expertise for curation, Puff was the ringmaster of relevancy, the pied piper of enjoyable and the drive on the very heart of cultural energy. 

Whereas different individuals and types threw events, it was universally acknowledged that there was no social gathering like a Puffy social gathering. Each time he bought of us collectively, it was a novel and, sure, legendary celebration of an amplified voice and an impactful tradition.

Donald Trump. Anna Wintour. Clive Davis. Ashton Kutcher. Former flame Jennifer Lopez. Kim Kardashian. The record of stars and luminaries who held courtroom at a Diddy bash had been as spectacular as any Met Gala pink carpet, and the invite simply as coveted.

“The final one to do that was Truman Capote together with his Black and White social gathering,” recollects Diddy’s former consultant, Rob Shuter, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Diddy’s No. 1 expertise was he’s a publicist; he is aware of how one can promote. He’s from the Donald Trump college of publicity, and he knew how one can get consideration.”

It was by means of his mentor, Andre Harrell, founding father of Uptown Information, that Puff discovered to understand the ghettofabulous ethos that permeated all the things he did. Harrell’s model of style and concrete tradition referenced Nicky Barnes, the flashy drug kingpin and man-about-town who as soon as graced the duvet of the New York Instances Journal: designer fits, costly automobiles and flowing champagne. Uptown, the place Puff reduce his enamel, wasn’t simply promoting music; it was promoting the Uptown model, which was the ghettofabulous way of life. A style devotee with a penchant for mixing high-end designer items and avenue gear, and a scholar of all cultures however a disciple of hip-hop and R&B, Puff was the right in-house instance of what Harrell envisioned that way of life to be. He turned the chief embodiment and predominant promoter of ghettofabulosity.

Harrell’s ghettofabulous tutelage gave Puff the blueprint for his personal firm, Unhealthy Boy Information, and his corresponding occasions. He had been a daily at New York Metropolis nightclub the Tunnel’s hip-hop events, however they didn’t have the suitable vibe. So, Puff made downtown membership tradition aspirational by making a VIP atmosphere by means of the curation of individuals, style and no-expense-spared settings. Ranked by Forbes journal as one of many “World’s Hottest Events,” his famed White Events — with their customized white furnishings, monogrammed dance flooring, 1000’s of strung lights, acrobats, hearth dancers, topless mermaids within the pool, abundance of lobster and steak and weed brownies handed on silver platters — ultimately value round one million {dollars} by the mid 2000s, Jessica Rosenbloom, the White Get together’s head producer, estimated in Ebony journal. (Shuter notes that Diddy didn’t shell out the cash for these bashes: “He by no means spent a greenback, he at all times had a sponsor.”)

Not solely did the White Events open up the beforehand unwelcoming Hamptons for hip-hop and Black individuals, they made the Hamptons cool for everybody. “When Puffy began throwing his events, the Hamptons had been nonetheless white and rich. Although his neighbors tried to stop Diddy’s events from taking place, he was nonetheless in a position to deliver all races and creeds collectively. One 12 months, Trump even flew to the Hamptons in a helicopter to go to a White Get together afterparty at Membership NV,” Johnny Nunez, who’s been the primary movie star photographer of high-end city events for the reason that Nineties, elaborates. “Puff imported the DJs that ran the New York Metropolis nightclub scene to spin. Socialites who had solely ever listened to Z100 and who by no means knew the depths of Black music had been turning as much as Bonecrusher and DMX or Luther Vandross and Stephanie Mills. The music was amplifying the trade of tradition. And now, the hip-hop dances on TikTok that each race goes viral doing might be traced again to our tradition and the way in which Puffy launched Black music to the white elite.”

Shuter echoes the sentiment, noting that white superstars had been determined to get clout with a Diddy grasp. “Their publicists would name for his or her A-listers, eager to get them into events,” he says. “All of those white individuals may hang around with an individual of coloration … and it might make them look cool.”

Puffy elevated partying to an artwork kind, and his occasions turned probably the most coveted invites at the moment. Should you weren’t there, you weren’t culturally related. Actors from the largest movies and tv reveals clamored for invitations; NBA and NFL stars hounded managers for hookups; Wall Avenue honchos tried and failed to purchase their means in. However even once they had been on the record, individuals had been turned away on the door if their garments weren’t proper. We labored on our outfits for days for a Puffy social gathering as a result of we needed to come right. It was Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Fendi, Louboutin, Blahnik or bust. The White Events took it to the following degree since you couldn’t are available in the event you dared put on beige or ecru. Puff had a PR rep on the door who managed the record, policed the pure white apparel and likewise judged the style. She had no drawback telling anybody, irrespective of how highly effective, to get misplaced if their outfit wasn’t proper or their toes had been hanging over their sandals. One Puff social gathering invitation from the early 12 months aughts, a put up MTV Video Music Awards social gathering he co-hosted with Man Oseary in midtown, exemplified the stringent requirements of admittance:

“In case your footwear are scuffed, you’re going to have an issue. Should you’re sporting denims, you’re on the unsuitable observe. Pull out the flyest sh*t in your closet, or have your stylist pull one thing for you,” with recommendations together with Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana and his personal Sean John assortment. Males had been informed to get clear shaves; girls had been informed “hair-dos, waxing, manicures and pedicures” had been a should.

“He was simply the right ringmaster at this as a result of that’s what he was: He was our era’s P.T. Barnum, he placed on a present,” says Shuter. “All the things was about element, all the things was about press.”

On the heart of the concentric circles of energy was a tight-knit group of pure Black excellence. The previous CEO of a music label explains, “We had been a part of an ecosystem of proficient younger music execs that had by no means had cash like that earlier than in our lives. Puff launched us to a brand new way of life. He confirmed us what the following degree regarded like. A-list non-Black creatives had been determined to be subsequent to us as a result of we had been the new shit!”

On the top of Puff’s period of authorized revelry, we’d be partying with the artists who made the music we had been dancing to; we had been sporting the designers whose model executives had been on the subsequent banquette, and we had been making model illustration offers and reserving journal covers in banquettes with artists and athletes alike. The power to create cultural moments alongside tradition creators was, sure, legendary.

Puff’s expertise for curation made his occasions so legendary that they, together with hip hop tradition, unfold world wide. Quickly, Puff was throwing events in St. Tropez, Ibiza, Miami, Morocco and Los Angeles. And everybody was there: Mariah Carey, Martha Stewart, Jay-Z, Lindsay Lohan, Howard Stern, Oprah Winfrey, Lil’ Kim, Donna Karan, Al Sharpton, Paris Hilton, Jermaine Dupri, Jon Bon Jovi. Irrespective of during which nation, while you had been at a Puff social gathering, you knew you had been a part of an elite multicultural crowd of tastemakers, changemakers, powerbrokers, newsmakers, creatives and a few of the most beautiful cowl women you’ve ever seen.

Though by the early aughts, Puff had turn into the undisputed chief of the ghettofabulous motion, Harrell didn’t see Puff’s interpretation as empowering. To him, the Unhealthy Boy model was empty, stuffed with glitter and gold with no inspiration. As Harrell informed me in an interview earlier than his loss of life in 2020: “After I first met Puff, I may virtually really feel the hearth coming from deep inside his soul. Although my hiring Puff as an intern put him within the sport, it felt extra like I used to be simply getting out of the way in which of a bullet prepare, dashing inexorably down the observe towards an final objective. However the sooner a prepare goes, the simpler it’s to leap the tracks.”

And that’s precisely what occurred.

There’s a stark distinction between the primary Puff social gathering I attended and the final. The primary was a White Get together at his home within the Hamptons in 2000. The final was a Grammys afterparty at his mansion in Los Angeles in 2017 to which Harrell had invited me, as he and I had been engaged on a ebook collectively. At his first White Get together, Puff was dancing, he was on the mic hyping the group, he was sending Champagne to VIP banquettes, he was making it “grown and horny” as he used to say. Within the later years, he wasn’t completely happy or partying, nor did he look focused on hyping his visitors. As a substitute, he was sitting in a nook, surrounded by a mass of random individuals, trying glassy-eyed and bored. At that final social gathering, I bear in mind Cassie glued to his facet, trying equally glassy-eyed and unhappy. And though it was his social gathering, you now not bought the sense that it was a Puffy social gathering.

Whereas I by no means personally noticed something illicit aside from some drug use in corners, there was a sense of freedom on the early-year events. Maybe as a result of it was so onerous to get in, most of us, naively, felt as if we had been in a tight-knit circle of belief the place we may let our guard down, dance on tables and do tequila pictures till daybreak. We had been in a “protected area” that turned out to be completely unsafe.

It’s not stunning that absolute energy corrupted Sean Combs completely — particularly throughout the context of the bigger hip-hop music and tradition trajectory from enjoyable to harmful as gangsta rap took over. Together with gangsta rap’s glorified depictions of violence got here sexually express themes inside lyrics and concrete iconography that, in the end, yielded widespread misogyny. As a girl working adjoining to the male-dominated city music business, I spotted that the misogyny — and accompanying hypermasculinity —created harmful conditions for me in too many environments, together with the events that had, at one time, appeared like a innocent good time.

I hate to see the conflation of Puff’s authorized events within the heyday with the abuses of energy and depravity which have now been alleged in the previous few years, and detailed in prison paperwork. 

However in studying the allegations towards Diddy, one may maybe see the throughline between the orchestrated extravagance of these events and the way in which during which he purportedly managed the so-called “freak-offs” and people concerned. And there was at all times one other facet to Diddy than the charming social gathering host: The person who was acquitted of gun expenses in a 1999 taking pictures that left three individuals injured and resulted in a years-long sentence  for his protégé Shyne, who later mentioned he took the autumn for Diddy; or the mogul who violently assaulted Steve Stoute in his workplace over his anger over the path of a Nas-Diddy music video (felony expenses had been dropped at Stoute’s request and the case was settled out of courtroom).

Fortunately, whereas Sean “Puffy” “Diddy” “Love” Combs has been undeniably impactful to city tradition, the city social gathering world has lengthy since moved on. Branded occasions at Cannes, Martha’s Winery and Sundance have changed Puff’s bacchanalias, and Michael Rubin’s annual Hamptons White Get together is now the place to see and be seen. Can’t cease, gained’t cease.