Just kidding! Three days after announcing that he has changed his name again, Sean “Diddy” Combs admits he was “only joking.”
In a video posted to his Instagram on Monday, November 6, the Grammy winner, 48, said: “Well, ladies and gentlemen, today I’ve come to the conclusion that you cannot play around with the internet.”
“Due to the overwhelming response from the media out there, and just due to there not wanting to be any confusion… I was only joking. Okay? I didn’t change my name. It was just part of one of my alter egos. One of my alter egos is Love,” he continued.
The rapper went on to clarify that he doesn’t care what you call him, stating: “To set the record straight, because I have a lot of press to do in the next couple of weeks, you can address me by any of my older names. But, if you still wanna call me Love, you can call me Love, baby. But, I was only playing.”
Over the weekend, however, Combs had a much different attitude when he took to his Twitter to announce the faux name change. In a video posted to his account on Saturday, he said: “Ayo, what’s up, y’all? I have some very serious, serious news. I’ve been praying on this and … I knew it was risky ’cause it could come off as corny to some people, [but] I decided to change my name again.”
The Harlem native continued, “I’m just not who I am before. I’m something different. So my new name is Love, a.k.a. Brother Love.” He went on to tell his followers that he would no longer answer to any of his previous names. “I will not be answering to Puffy, Diddy, Puff Daddy or any of my other monikers but Love or Brother Love, OK?” he said.
The name change wouldn’t have been his first. His 1997 debut album, No Way Out, was released under the name Puff Daddy, and he adopted the nickname P. Diddy in 2001. In 2005, he dropped the “P” and began performing solely as Diddy. He then returned to his original stage name, Puff Daddy, in 2014.
In July, he said on Sunday Today With Willie Geist that he was “entering a Sean phase,” explaining, “I’m at that point in my life where I’m evolving and I’m searching for the person I lost through the different personalities and nicknames.”
