Diddy’s ex Dana Tran is giving rare insight on raising their daughter, Love, on her 4th birthday.
“All of us, [including her] siblings, we call her an old soul because she acts like an old lady in a little 3-year-old body. She’s hilarious, and she doesn’t even purposely act hilarious. It’s just her spunky-like character. It’s just natural, and people are very drawn to her,” Tran, 32, exclusively told Us on Wednesday, October 14, the eve of Love’s big day.
Sharing photos with Us that show the mother and daughter posing on the sunny beaches of Southern California for Love’s annual birthday shoot, Tran added, “Even in school, they say she’s very empathetic. She’s the first person to console a kid if they’re crying. The teacher always tells me she’s just very shocked at her mature nature. I think it’s because she’s hanging out with me and her siblings who are all adults.”
Tran and Love have an unbreakable bond, with the matriarch telling Us they’ve already created their own little traditions.
“She always cooks with me. That’s something really, really, really big. … She’s been able to crack an egg since about a year,” the mom and cybersecurity expert shared while noting she was “intentional” about raising their daughter to have an “advanced” culinary understanding.
“I never made purees, so she always cooked with me. Even now, if we do steak, she’s using tongs to flip it for me. That’s something that is very special to me because I am Vietnamese, and she doesn’t sit here and eat macaroni and cheese. She’s eating very, very complex meals with a lot of ingredients and spices, and she cooks it, so she wants to eat it because she made it,” Tran explained.
Tran also shared a fun tidbit about Love’s unique name, telling Us that she and Diddy, 56, originally had a completely different one picked out.
“Love was never a contender for her name. Her name was actually never Love. My entire pregnancy, she had a different name,” she revealed. “When we saw her face, her original name, we’re like, ‘No, that doesn’t fit her.’ And we prayed on it, we meditated on it, and then we came to Love a few days later.”
Their child “loves her name,” Tran shared. “She’s always really proud to tell people what her name is. And honestly, she truly lives up to her name. She just exudes love and light.”
Tran said she “almost named her Ocean,” explaining, “She’s a very, very ocean-heavy baby. I swam in the ocean every day when I was pregnant. My doctor was like, ‘No more swimming in the ocean’ because she thought I would give birth in the ocean because I was always in the ocean. So Love is not scared of swimming in the open water with fish. She’s very comfortable.”
Fish were one of the reasons they recently went to Mexico to celebrate Love turning 4.
“That’s how we decided to celebrate because she actually went for the first time in July — she swam with a fish — and since July, every two days she has asked to return to swim with a fish, and it’s been her nonstop ask. So that’s how we celebrated. I took her to Mexico to swim with the fish,” Tran noted.
For Tran, being Love’s mother has changed her perception of herself. She and Diddy welcomed Love on October 15, 2022, less than two years before the music mogul was arrested on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
“[Motherhood] taught me I’m a lot stronger than I think I am, but also a lot softer in ways I’ve never expected myself to be … and I find strength in being soft,” she opened up to Us. “And you take a new approach to things and conflict and even controversy, even within myself. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is that I have a lot more strength than I ever imagined, and being soft was never a weakness. It actually became a strength of mine.”
Diddy, who is currently set to be released from prison in March 2028, still has a relationship with Love while he’s behind bars.
“She knows exactly who her dad is. She actually recognizes his songs. She obviously doesn’t know anything going on,” Tran told Us. “You don’t get calls every day. You can’t. There’s no way. There’s no access. So we take what we can get, and he tries.”
When asked whether she still includes Diddy in the decision-making process about raising their daughter, Tran said, “Before he was incarcerated, we had a lot of conversations like that because I have a lot of strong opinions about things, and he has a lot of strong opinions about things. I’m not a one-way street. I take his opinions, obviously, into consideration, and also he’s not a first-time parent, so there are things I’ve leaned on him before because he has a lot of kids.”
She also revealed the exes have a “great, amicable relationship” and their “main focus is Love, always.”
Tran knows that as Love gets older, she might see headlines or hear things about her family, but Tran takes their lives one day at a time.
“I don’t have the answer for that today, but it’s something that she can’t — none of us can — run away or hide from, and it’s nothing she needs to be ashamed of. It has nothing to do with her, so I just hopefully am able to raise her to be strong, independent and very understanding of who she is as a person,” she noted.
Tran said when Diddy is free, she hopes he and Love will have a normal father-daughter relationship.
“I feel like any sane mother would want a father in the lives of their children, and I don’t sit here and have all these plans. I don’t. I stop trying to think far because I can only control today. But I hope when he is free, he can build a relationship and have a chance. I feel like every child deserves to get to know their father,” she told Us.
As a single mother, Tran relies heavily on her parents and inner circle.
“They’ve been very, very involved with my childhood and Love. They’re a part of every step of the way, and I know they’re only looking for the best interest for Love in me,” she shared.
Her loved ones, however, couldn’t help her prepare for Diddy’s incarceration.
“I don’t know anyone [else who is] incarcerated. I didn’t grow up with anyone with incarcerated parents, so I had to lean on friends of friends to speak to about their experience because I genuinely wanted to know and understand how they felt,” Tran said. “So something like that, where in my immediate family and support system, no one really could give me help or advice, but I had people within degrees that I trusted to speak with me because they cared about my child’s well-being.”
That especially came into play when Tran was deciding on whether she wanted Love to visit her father in prison.
“I’m thinking of my child’s well-being, so I wasn’t against it. I just wasn’t gung ho about it right away, and no one pressured me,” she admitted. “It was me speaking to people that were kids visiting incarcerated parents, and every single one of them told me that it actually helped them, not hurt them. Because prior to that, I was kind of against it.”
Tran also shared that Diddy’s eldest children have been “amazing” at keeping their relationship alive with their youngest half-sister. Diddy has seven kids in total: Quincy, 35, Justin, 32, Christian, 28, Chance, 20, twins D’Lila and Jessie, 19, and Love.
“They fight me on time with her because they always want her. They treat her like their child. They’re great with her. … Obviously I don’t have a physical coparent, but I’m mindful of the time that they want to spend with her and take her own experiences, and they do a great job,” Tran told Us.
“They’re very protective of her, which is awesome. … They’re actually at times a lot more strict than me,” she noted. “So it’s a good balance. We have a great relationship. They’re very present.”
As Love gets older, Tran wants their daughter to be “inquisitive” and “never lose that spark.”
“I want her to feel loved and very safe and celebrated as a kid. You know, we have very hard boundaries in my household, but I think that’s going to make her a very disciplined adult. I want her growing up knowing that she needs to work hard, be educated and be scholarly because that’s my background,” Tran said. (The mom of one went to Georgetown University and the University of Irvine before building her impressive career in cybersecurity.)
Tran continued to share her dreams for Love, telling Us: “I want her to grow up always wanting to learn more and improve herself or improve the loved ones around her. Because when she has that strong foundation of ‘let me always learn, let me always try to understand,’ she’ll be a great human. We can only pray that our children grow up to be good humans. … I need to understand her childhood now, shape it now, because then when she’s out of my house, I have no control over that.”
Tran rarely speaks to the media, but she said this time it felt right to “show off and share a little bit because [Love’s] an extraordinary little girl that I hope will be a great human one day.”
For now, the pair are focused on extracurriculars. Tran told Us that Love is currently enrolled in ballet, soccer and gymnastics.
“I have so many things I want her to try and see what she can master and be good at. That excites me. So [I am] pouring into that,” she shared. “I hate when people say, ‘Oh my God, you guys lose yourself in motherhood.’ I am finding myself.”
