Puff drops a million to his alma mater

Puff Daddy has given a million dollars to the University he went to:

Puff Daddy has donated $1 million to the Howard University in Washington D.C.

Mr Daddy was a business student at Howard, and nowadays he's nudging close to be worth a billion.

If you wanted to be cynical, you might notice that he dropped out of the university after two years. But if Howard have their wits about them, they'd be running "if you can become a billionaire with just two years with us, imagine how great you'd be if you graduated" ads.

Gordon in the morning: Come on you blues

This morning, Gordon Smart claims P Diddy is about to become the latest rich American keen to have soccer fans yelling in his face about how much they hate him:

RAP star P DIDDY plans to put the Cristal into Crystal Palace with a shock bid for the struggling London footie team.

Really?

Last night his UK spokesman confirmed the multi-millionaire is in the market for Palace. He also added that the New Yorker has his eye on another big club.

A source said: "Diddy was in London meeting football fixers a couple of weeks ago. The finance is in place, he's just deciding who he thinks he'll make a bid for.

"Portsmouth were mentioned but he thought Palace were a better idea.

"He could cover their debt and bankroll a return to the Premier League. He liked the name as well."

It's not entirely clear why, if Diddy's spokesman has gone on the record, that Smart is running quotes from an unnamed source.

Still, you've got to look forward to the fans welcoming a man who has bought their club because of its name. You couldn't hope for a more committed chairman than that, could you?

Twittergem: Puff Daddy

Oh, @iamdiddy, tell us what you're doing, for WE MUST KNOW. Are you eating breakfast? Are you watching television? Are you on your way to somewhere you might eat breakfast?

Makin history! What are you doin?

What am I doing? Funny you should ask, Diddy, I'm making the universally recognised hand-gesture for 'wanker'.

Daddy's Twitter account has a little symbol on it which says "verified account", which presumably means someone at Twitter has convinced themselves that the Daddy who Tweets is the same Daddy who... what is his job these days? You can see why they might want to provide this service, but it does run the risk of creating all sorts of philosophical crises down the line. If, for example, Britney Spears employs someone to Tweet on her behalf, can the account be said to be "verified"? My Twitter feed is, genuinely, mine - should I not be verified as genuine? Or does verification only count if you're famous for something?

Diddy sees a culture laid waste; seeks blame

Hip hop has become a bit of a stinking beast over the last few years. Sure, there's still a lot of innovative stuff, but at the end with the sales, it's become a bit stagnant.

Indeed, so bad is the smell that it's hit the nostrils of Puff himself:

"People have figured out the formula when they make records for radio, and DJs ain't DJs no more. DJs don't break records no more. DJs don't play album cuts. DJs play what is going to move the crowd. DJs, they don't expose you to the newness. That was the DJs' thing. Hip-hop is in a recession also."

Ah, yes. It's the DJs fault. Not, as you might have thought, that hip-hop has now been around long enough to have the same problems as rock - that it's choked up with figures who have long since lost any interest in exciting music and who hang on, churning out substandard fare that gets over-promoted because of what they did, rather than what they're doing. People like... oooh, there's a name on the tip of my tongue, but I can't quite... no... it's gone.

Diddy might lose his bottle

Tom Patti is angry-to-the-point-of-lawsuits with Puff Daddy. And, in particular, his perfume. Not just because it smells of a wetdog sleeping in a mushroom storeroom. Oh, no: Patti is suing because he says the bottle of the poorly named "Unforgivable" is ripped off one of his sculptures.

It's surprising anyone buys the perfume anyway - in the advert, Diddy intones that "life without passion is Unforgivable". Which means, presumably, that the bottle contains passionless life.

Diddy wanted Danity to push on, grimly

Puff Daddy's attempts to create an urban Spice Girls, Danity Kane, have let him down badly by developing such bitter internal animosities the group shattered. (Which, let's face it, at least shows how successfully he transplanted the Spice Girls model.)

Daddy isn't pleased, explains Dawn Danity:

"Puff's a businessman," she said. "Puff knows what's smart. No matter how much beef you have, [you put it aside] for your business. He knew we have a big fanbase. We got to get this stuff fixed. That's why he kept trying to fix it. We thought everyone was coming back, or at least trying."

Putting aside the beef to keep your business going - advice which is as good for anyone running a saltbeef stand as it is for a pop group. Apart from it being rubbish advice for a pop group, because is there any sight less edifying than people who hate each other trying to dance together?

You've also got to love the idea of P Diddy telling Danity Kane to be professional and not let your music get overshadowed by pointless feuds. It's like getting a lecture on financial probity from the Royal Bank Of Scotland.

Darkness at 3AM: Words and Bonds

Oh, 3AM Girls, did you accidentally send a first draft?

P Diddy wants to Moonrake it in as the next James Bond and has already spent £500,000 on making an 007 audition tape.

Moonrake it in? Moonrake?

And they said Obama wasn't going to take victory for granted

Even although he's not president yet - not even president-elect yet - Barack Obama is dropping all his friends from before he was famous. MTV reports that Jay-Z, P Diddy, Ben Affleck, the AFLAC duck, Mary J Blige and - well, you can probably round this list out for yourself - have been asked to stay away from tonight's big Chicago victory bash*.

But then, if you were president, wouldn't your first move be to send an email to Puff Daddy telling him to keep at least a Federally-mandated five hundred feet away at all times?

* - not that it's a victory bash yet, as nobody is taking anything for granted, but they couldn't wait until the New York polls close before they start carving a sixty-foot ice sculpture depicting Obama riding Pegasus as the planets themselves bow down before him, could they? The ice sculptors do say they'll leave off doing the face until six-thirty Eastern time, though, so it could just be Joe The Plumber if the exit data looks gloomy. back

Diddy's plane lies

You'll recall P Diddy's complaints about the high cost of air fuel from last week, of course. The poor thing couldn't afford to fly his private jet, he complained.

Thye Palm Beach Post, though, has been doing some digging and reckons that it's found the cost of aviation fuel shouldn't be a problem for Diddy at all: he doesn't own a jet:

One private aviation source scoffed: “It’s my jet this, my jet that. I have list of every plane with the name of the owner, and he’s not on it.”

Further evidence he was making it up? He hasn't got a clue what planes cost, either:

The private aviation spy said Diddy’s math is off. Flying back and forth to the Left Coast twice would set him back $100,000, even with pricey fuel.

“The truly rich aren’t affected by oil when it comes to private planes,” said the private aviation source in Palm Beach. “Monthly payments on a $20 million-plane and crews are expensive.”

What makes this even more embarrassing for Diddy is that he took MTV off to a hanger to see a jet which he appears to have told them he owned.

His people try and explain how he might have got confused and suddenly started talking about owning a plane when he doesn't:

The hip-hopper’s publicist in New York said Combs, 38, swears Combs is the fractional owner of a NetJets plane.

That company sells flight hours on private jets and calls it “fractional ownership.”

I suppose if you had a timeshare in Spain, you might start to get confused and assume you had some sort of presidential status in Madrid.

Nelly gets into P Diddy's pants

As a model. Why doesn't Diddy model his own bloody pants?

"I know some of you are going to be hating on the blogs"

P Diddy rushes from his multigym to his video camera with some breaking news:



Ten fingers! Ten toes! Was he suffering from a lack of oxygen, or is this some sort of pitch for a gig on Sesame Street?

Coming tomorrow: "Check it out haters - two thumbs, right, and they're prehensile."

[Thanks to Michael M]

Does Diddy know what he's saying?

We're sure P Diddy-Wah-Wah didn't quite mean to make the surprising announcement he slipped out in Hollywood:

"It's also like my coming-out party here in Hollywood," Combs told AP. "I don't have nothing to hide about that. If I'm going to come someplace, I'm going to make some noise, and you're going to know I'm here."

So, that would be Diddy being out and - with nothing to hide - proud. We feel as if we should send some sort of card.

The artist formerly known as...

Yes, Puff Daddy has changed his name again: he now wants to be known as Sean John, thereby becoming the first person ever to name themselves after their brand of perfume, instead of the other way round.

Tim Kash has arrived in 2007

Good lord, apparently Tim Kash, presenter on The All New Top Of The Pops (he was kind of the Crazylegs Crane of the deal) is still hanging about the not-very-entertaining end of the entertainment industry, resurfacing as some sort of bagman for Puff Daddy.

According to 3AM:

"I was out part ying with P Diddy and a fight broke out between him and this other guy... I was in the middle and had to separate them. And all this commotion was over a girl!"

A girl, eh? Fancy that. Rather than, say, a bejeweled egg or arguing over suppy side economics.

We think Mr. Kash must be some sort of butler or something.

Diddy buys Girl Scout Cookies in Ibiza

Look, that YouTube video where P Diddy appears to be doing a deal in a Ibiza club?

It's cookies he's buying. Clearly. Two boxes, please. That's what he's asking for.

After all:

[Diddy]’s lawyer said last night: “Any suggestion he is buying drugs would be patently false. He does not use drugs.”

P Diddy's competition: More suspect than a Liz Kershaw phone-in

P Diddy, it's safe bet, is unlikely to be called in to help the BBC with their quiz show problem. (Incidentally, what are they going to do about Smile this Sunday? It's all well and good "restoring the foundation", but at the cost of Nev's Pie-Jamas? Is that a price worth paying?)

Pro Hip-Hop raises it eyebrows at Diddy's claims of 10,000 entrants for his online video 'become my PA' contest:

When I first saw that video I checked the personal assistant YouTube submission group and it only had about 40-something videos posted. Here are the current stats according to YouTube:
Videos: 409 | Members: 590 | Discussions: 159

Which is reassuring - the thought that there were 10,000 people were so desperate to be Diddy's "24/7" slave might well have been more than hope could stand.

It's like William Hickey battling Nigel Dempster

They were always arguing in print about who had the first "scoop" on some story so far removed from the realms of interest, too. This morning, the 3AM Girls find room in their public service to provide a 'nyahnyahnyah' bit:

OH dear. Another boob from our low-rent "rivals". Last week, when we revealed P Diddy and Kim Porter's split they denied it, saying they had got him out of bed to "kill the rumour".

Sadly for the ill-informed team, Diddy's rep Keesha Johnson has confirmed they are no longer an item. Oops.

Fascinating.

So, what's the big stories on 3AM today?
someone has created a fake Liam Gallagher profile on Facebook, and a photo of Rachel Stevens kissing Alex Leigh - woman kisses boyfriend shock - which was on the Daily Mail website yesterday lunchtime and they haven't even put on the Mirror site. Well done, everybody.

It's what she would have wanted

Of course, Victoria Newton was at the Difest, hanging out with Puff Diddy:

P DIDDY says Harry parties harder than him in tribute to princes and their mother

Ah, and what mother could want a better tribute to the way she raised her sons than to have one publicly applauded for, erm, being good at drinking too much.

And just think: if Earl Spencer hadn't taken care to ensure that those boys spirits could sing, Harry might never have become the George Best of the royals.

Newton seems to be a little obsessed with Diddy:

P Diddy caught the tone just right in his performance.

He dedicated I’ll Be Missing You — a song he wrote for a friend who died — to Diana.

He paid tribute to her “grace, beauty and compassion” and praised her for being a “wonderful mother”.

The princes were visibly moved.

Earlier he said: “She’s in a better place now, and she brought the sun out today.”

He caught the right tone by suggesting that a young woman had turned into a supernatural force controlling the weather (in which case, half of Sheffield would like a word, Di) and by dedicating a song to her about a bloke murdered in a pointless gang feud. Thank god he wasn't all mawkish and inappropriate.

This should interest the Daily Express

In a bid to try and explain what the hell he's doing on the bill for the Diana gig, P Diddy explains that he can understand the loss of Diana:

"I can relate because of Biggie. I'm gonna feel real good remembering him and Di."

What? Is he suggesting that the Duke of Edinburgh killed Biggie too?

Still, it's not totally insane to compare the deaths of the two - both inspired mawkishly unlistenable tribute singles.

Diddy flees from wannabe Daddy

We always knew that Sean Combs was all puff and no balls. Does any man in 2007 really get so thrown by having a bloke hit on him that he runs away squealing?

Diddy lasted just ten minutes at London's Maddox club, before his shiny, shiny things and stylish clothes attracted another guy's eye:

One guest reveals: "This guy was quite drunk and he'd already made passes at one of the barmen. But when Diddy walked in, the guy made it his mission to try and get in there with him."

"The guy just went in for the kill, grabbing a vodka bottle off Diddy's table and lunging towards him. He looked like he was puckering up as he tried to grind against him - and Diddy wasn't amused. He couldn't flee the club fast enough."

It's not clear why Diddy flew away in such a panic - was it because he was enjoying it a little too much? Is he afraid you can catch gayness? Or was it simply that he was annoyed that he was considered second choice after his admirer had got a knock back from the hired help?

Still, at least the guy who tried it on has the excuse that he was very, very drunk indeed.