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Danyel Smith, former editor-in-chief of Vibe magazine, claims Diddy once threatened that she would end up “dead in the trunk of a car” over a cover photo.
“A thing happened between Sean Combs and me,” Smith wrote in a new essay for the New York Times. “Unlike what he has been accused of over the last eight months, what occurred between us was not sexual. It was professional — demonstrative of the way dynamic and domineering men moved in our heyday. Combs and I worked together a lot. Competed, in our way. So often I thought I came out on top. I was mistaken. I had reason to fear for my life. What happened was insidious. It broke my brain. I forgot the worst of it for 27 years.”
What she recalls is from a photo shoot that took place in Manhattan in September 1997.
“He cooperated up to a point, but eventually his controlling ways took hold,” she recalled. “A few days later, Combs wanted to see the Vibe covers before they went to press. It wasn’t our policy to show covers before publication, so after I told him no, we heard that he planned to come to our office and force us to show him what we’d chosen — and to make us choose something else if he didn’t like what he saw.”
Fearing Combs, Danyel Smith and some her staff created an escape plan should Diddy come to the office.
He did come. And she ran. The next day Diddy called her at her Vibe office.
“He was still on message: He wanted to see the covers,” she continued. “I was still on message: It’s not what we do. It was then that Combs told me, as I’ve retold hundreds of times over the years, that he would see me ‘dead in the trunk of a car.’ Not missing a beat, I told him he needed to take that threat back. ‘Take it back,’ I said, sounding as if I were 10.
“’Take what back?’ Then, with a vile laugh, ‘[Expletive] you.’
“’Take it back now,’ I said. ‘Or I’m calling my lawyer, and you’re going to jail.’
“He said: ‘I know where you are right now. Right on Lexington.’”
Smith then called her lawyer, who called Combs, who later faxed over an apology.
Shortly after the incident, a couple of servers were stolen from the Vibe office. Coincidence or something more sinister? She doesn’t know for sure.
Coincidentally, the same day Danyel Smith essay is published, Eminem dropped a new single “Antichrist” in which he raps, “But who else is as pitiless, actually witty and crass, hideous, ghastly, and insidious as me … or spitting as nasty? Next idiot ask me is getting his ass beat worse than Diddy did.”
Eminem continued later in the song, “But on the real, though (What?)/ She probably ran out the room with his f—— d—- (Come here)/ He tried to field goal punt her, she said to chill (No!!!)/ Now put it back in my a– and get the steel toe … ewww.”
On his next song on his new album, “Fuel,” Eminmen again goes after Diddy and the allegations he had something to do with Tupac’s murder.