Broken-hearted. Sean “Diddy” Combs broke down sobbing over the loss of his ex-girlfriend and the mother of three of his children, Kim Porter, in a new interview.
The gut-wrenching audio from the 49-year-old “I’ll Be Missing You” rapper’s conversation with Essence for its May cover issue was released on the magazine’s “Yes, Girl!” podcast on Thursday, May 12.
“We definitely gonna celebrate, you know, all the mothers,” Diddy said after being asked how he and his kids with Porter, son Christian, 21, and twin daughters Jessie and D’Lila, 12, would celebrate Mother’s Day on May 12. (Combs also shares son Justin, 25, with Misa Hylton Brim and daughter Chance, 13, with Sarah Chapman.)
He continued: “You know, honestly, anybody that’s lost a mother, lost a soulmate, it takes time, it takes time …They say time heals all wounds … when it comes to your mother or your mothers, I don’t think that’s the case. And that’s not a negative thing, ’cause as people we need wounds … [you] need something to sting you sometimes, forever.”
Diddy didn’t get much further, however, as he admitted to feeling lost following Porter’s death. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” he cried. “I’ll figure something out, though. It just hurts so much, I know that people wanna hear, like, the good stuff, but … it hurts. Ain’t no way around that.”
At one point, he was so choked up he didn’t know if he could even finish the interview. “I wanted to do it cause I wanted to let everybody know just how special, like, all the mothers are .. and how, like, I don’t think anybody could ever understand, like, how hard it is to be a black mother.”
Earlier in the clip, the musician said that he’s been working to fill the maternal role that Porter left behind. “I’m trying to step into my mommy/daddy role and also accept help,” Diddy said. “I had to immediately tap into my feminine side and my protective side. The emotions are at such a level … I’ve never actually felt emotions like this. My heart was never open like this.”
Porter died at the age of 47 due to lobar pneumonia in November.
“It was definitely, it was a total shock and a surprise,” Diddy told Essence of her passing. “It really, really, really woke me up. … it’s the craziest, like, most traumatic thing I’ve ever … been through.”
Though Diddy was in a relationship with ex Cassie on and off from 2007 to 2018, he confessed that he never fully stopped loving Porter after they dated on and off from 1994 to 2007.
“I wasn’t being all the way honest with my love for her to myself and even to other people that… I was in a relationship with,” he said.
While the Grammy winner said he doesn’t have any regrets, he confessed he “definitely took for granted that [Kim] would just be with me forever. I took for granted that something like this could happen.”
She left behind one major lesson, however: being present for their children. “I always felt like God sent her for me to teach me something,” noting that he’s now, “really putting them first” over his career.
A source told Us Weekly at the time of Porter’s death that the Four star was “inconsolable.” “Kim and Diddy didn’t always see eye-to-eye on things, but their love for their children and the deep respect they had for each other trumped any issue they had,” the insider said. “They were on very good terms in recent years. She was a ‘ride or die’ and very loyal to Diddy.”
Earlier this week, Diddy’s son Justin told Us exclusively that his dad is now “just healing.” “He’s doing fine. He’s prayed up now, and everything is good.”
