Part One: P. Diddy: A Life in Crimes

Robert sits down with his friend, Grammy-award winning audio engineer Greazy Wil, to talk about Sean "P Diddy" Combs, a sex criminal who killed way more people than you'd expect. (3 Part Series) Sean 'Diddy' Combs: What's a 'freak off', and what are the charges against him? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c869qd5j09xo The ‘Freak-Offs’ at the Core of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Troubles: Drugs, Sex, Baby Oil - The New York Times https://archive.is/TPMyh#selection-1213.0-1229.261 https://www.miamiherald.com/miami-com/miami-com-news/article295553889.html#storylink=cpy Diddy's White Parties Were Wild — Check out the Photos https://www.distractify.com/p/sean-diddy-combs-white-party-photos 'I believe I was sexually assaulted at P. Diddy's party after winning tickets on a radio show' https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/i-believe-i-was-sexually-assaulted-at-p-diddys-party-after-winning-tickets-on-a-radio-show/ar-AA1uJE3G?ocid=BingNewsSerp We should've known about Diddy: A history of violence | Salon.com https://www.salon.com/2023/11/20/we-shouldve-known-about-diddy-a-history-of-violence/ Before he was Diddy: Covering Sean Combs’s first scandal - Columbia Journalism Review https://www.cjr.org/first_person/before-diddy-sean-combs-first-scandal-stampede-ccny-city-college-deaths.php THE CRUSH AT CITY COLLEGE; AN INQUIRY SPREADS BLAME FOR DEATHS AT A NEW YORK GYM - The New York Times https://archive.is/wvTU4#selection-7261.110-7269.431 Music Executive Recounts Day of Altercation With Rapper Combs - Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-21-fi-39384-story.html The epic rise and fall of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs | The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/p-diddy-accusations-lawsuit-love-sean-combs-b2547969.html Diddy Accused Of Paying $1M For Tupac's Murder, New Court Documents Reveal https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/diddy-accused-of-paying-1m-for-tupacs-murder-new-court-documents-reveal/ar-BB1qyFEX Diddy Reflects on the Childhood Memories That Drove His Success https://americansongwriter.com/diddy-reflects-on-the-childhood-memories-that-drove-his-success/ Sean "P. Diddy" Combs Bio: Everything You Need to Know About the Entertainment Mogul - The Hip Hop Insider https://thehiphopinsider.com/bios/sean-p-diddy-combs-bio/ Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs: The ups and downs of a ‘bad boy’ turned businessman | CNN https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/entertainment/sean-diddy-combs-career/index.html Sean 'Diddy' Combs on growing up: "I wanted to... shake up the world" https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/02/media/diddy-sean-combs-ciroc-networth/ Diddy lived with the Amish and milked cows as a child https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-45082044 Everyone publicly involved in the Sean 'Diddy' Combs allegations : NPR https://www.npr.org/2024/10/10/g-s1-26981/diddy-sean-combs-cassie-kid-cudi-jodeci Diddy and Aubrey O’day’s Feud and Allegations Explained https://www.distractify.com/p/diddy-aubrey-oday-feud-explained Danity Kane’s Aubrey O’Day Says Diddy Tried to Buy Her Silence | Us Weekly https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/danity-kanes-aubrey-oday-says-diddy-tried-to-buy-her-silence/ Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s White Parties Were Edgy, A-List Affairs. Were They More? - The New York Times https://archive.ph/20241008013107/https:/www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/arts/music/sean-combs-diddy-white-parties.html#selection-5453.0-5473.267 The Hamptons’ “Modern-Day Gatsby”: Diddy’s White Party Turns 20 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hamptons-modern-day-gatsby-diddys-white-party-turns-20-1100974/ A NIGHT OUT WITH: Puffy; Gettin' Jiggy Wit The Jet Set - The New York Times https://archive.ph/20241003032937/https:/www.nytimes.com/1998/08/23/style/a-night-out-with-puffy-gettin-jiggy-wit-the-jet-set.html#selection-773.0-773.577 Politics and Partying Meet in the Hamptons - The New York Times https://archive.is/RouYo#selection-3279.0-3279.237 Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ lavish White Parties marked the peak of his cultural influence | CNN https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/24/entertainment/sean-diddy-combs-white-parties/index.html Diddy’s American Dream had a dark side: Years of lawsuits, controversy - The Washington Post https://archive.ph/20241018173311/https:/www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2024/05/03/diddy-lawsuits-allegations-sean-combs/#selection-2025.0-2117.2 https://www.irishstar.com/culture/entertainment/p-diddy-white-parties-models-34050967 https://www.themirror.com/entertainment/p-diddy-precious-muir-playboy-790850 https://nypost.com/2024/09/19/us-news/sean-diddy-combs-hamptons-sex-parties-with-gay-rappers/ https://www.distractify.com/p/sean-diddy-combs-white-party-photos https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/diddy-accused-of-paying-1m-for-tupacs-murder-new-court-documents-reveal/ar-BB1qyFEX https://www.bet.com/article/f51sy2/diddy-closes-justin-s-restaurant-in-atlanta https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/p-diddy-accusations-lawsuit-love-sean-combs-b2547969.html https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/diddy-made-money-off-student-protests-college.html/ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/diddy-friends-bad-boy-artists-abuse-violence-1235028178/ https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-sean-p-diddy-combs-bad-boy-entertainment-retrospective-20151005-story.html See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Underdog already has team picks, player props, money lines, spreads, you name it, they got it. But apparently somebody over there said, you know what's missing? Screaming like a maniac about a rookie card on your couch. And we love them for that. Because Underdog now has rips. You get a digital pack starting at just five bucks. You check the live odds, see which grails you could pull, then rip it open to reveal a real physical card. And the grails are no joke. They have cards up to $125,000 in value and plenty to pull. From football and basketball to Pokemon, with new limited edition packs dropping regularly. Even cooler, you can decide to keep the card and Underdog will ship it straight to your home or sell it back instantly at 100% of its fair market value.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  And the cash goes right in your account. No listing it online, no stranger lowballing you in the messages. Just rip, reveal, and cash out instantly. Or make some room on your shelf. Download Underdog and get in on the chase. Get five free rips packs when you deposit $5. Real rips, real cards, real cash. Only on Underdog. Unleash your dog. 18 plus, terms apply. Top grails are extremely rare.

• 1:12Robert Evans?

  Picture this, you're listening to the Sniffy's Cruising Confessions podcast and suddenly, wait, what did they just say? Well, the questions raised in those show-stopping moments will be answered in the all-new bonus series, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions: Bedside Manor. Hosts Gabe and Chris will dive deep on a specific topic covered in that week's Tuesday episode, from sexual health and HIV prevention to finding the right doctor. Listen to this special bonus series, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions: Bedside Manor, now on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get podcasts. Sponsored by Healthy Sexual from Gilead Sciences.

• 1:44Speaker 03

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat with flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment. Get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:19Robert Evans?

  Oh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast being recorded on a shockingly good week. We've all been in a real downswing since the election, but some great news lately.

• 2:34Speaker 04

  Fantastic things.

• 2:35Robert Evans?

  A thing happened that we probably shouldn't joke about, but you know what it is. Bashar al-Assad fled Syria, Nick Fuentes got arrested, and our guest today is one of my favorite people, someone that the audience has not met before, but someone who has been a friend of mine for like 15 years.

• 2:52Speaker 05

  Great human, very excited.

• 2:54Robert Evans?

  I have told some stories about this person.

• 2:56Speaker 04

  Hold on on the great human stuff, but like, you know.

• 2:58Speaker 05

  Great human.

• 2:59Robert Evans?

  My humanitarian friend, Greasy Will, uh, greasy with a Z, uh, Grammy Award-winning, uh, audio engineer, uh...

• 3:11Speaker 04

  Yes, and proof that you can accomplish great things with half of a brain.

• 3:15Robert Evans?

  Uh, for the album, you won that Grammy for the album Michael by Killer Mike. Uh, my audience will also know you as the other person in that story where I had a lightbulb fight in Santa Monica.

• 3:28Speaker 04

  Oh, man. Amazing times.

• 3:33Robert Evans?

  You and I have had some adventures.

• 3:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, and you know what's cool is like, uh, I mean, you know, I'm gonna have my best etiquette today because I am a Behind the Bastards fan, because I, you know, I listen to this show because it's like hanging out with my friends still, you know? It's like, it's like every day that we've ever been together is like, like Robert gets, I'm like, "Hey, man, you guys, you guys ever heard that story about the Egyptian guy?" No, tell me more.

• 3:59Robert Evans?

  Tell me more about this fucked up dude.

• 4:01Speaker 05

  And we had a lot of conversations about when we were going to introduce you to the Behind the Bastards audience, and I, I have made a request for three separate topics, and I have never told people those three topics that I have requested Robert to write about, but one of them is today, and, um, I desperately wanted you on these episodes, so I'm very, very excited about this.

• 4:26Robert Evans?

  As a representative of the hip-hop industry, it's appropriate that we are gathered here today to talk about P. Diddy.

• 4:35Speaker 04

  Oh, my god.

• 4:38Robert Evans?

  Sean Puffy Combs.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  It has been an amazing opportunity to be here for this because, you know, there's a certain thing, and I'm gonna try and be careful today because like, there's, when you're in the industry as deep as I am, I'm 15 years into doing this, it is, it's damn near impossible to miss the rumors, right? It's like, and I actually had a, a huge viral like TikTok right at the, uh, beginning of all this, when the first lawsuit dropped, when the Cassie lawsuit dropped. I had a viral TikTok that got like 10 million views because I was like, immediately I was like, ah, Diddy's going down, dude. Because there's certain people in the industry, you've heard so many things about for so long,

• 5:21Speaker 04

  that when that thing comes out and like the first damn breaks, that first little, the, the Dutch boy pulls his finger out or whatever, you know, it is going to start uncovering ridiculous things. And I even said at the moment, I was like, if the tabloids are starting to run with this stuff, it is only a matter of time before the feds get involved. Like, the feds don't like looking stupid. They don't like looking bad like that. And when somebody is sex trafficking across countries.

• 5:50Robert Evans?

  I'm not laughing at the sex trafficking, I'm just happy that he got caught, yes.

• 5:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like, you gotta know, it's like, this was coming, it was going to happen. And when it opened up, when the dam opened up, it was like, oh, let's see what happens, let's see what happens.

• 6:05Speaker 05

  At one point, Robert was like, At one point, Robert was like, he had new baby goats. What kind of goats were they?

• 6:12Robert Evans?

  That is the story that opens this podcast.

• 6:14Speaker 05

  Oh, great, oh, great.

• 6:16Robert Evans?

  Yeah, cuz you started by being like, in the industry, I've been hearing fucking rumors about P. Diddy for years. Well, roughly a year ago, my goat had little baby goats, and one of them was a hybrid Nigerian Angora mix with the softest hair I have ever felt on an animal. That's not a chinchilla, beautiful animal. Uh, previously, I had gone with the rubric of naming my livestock after famous historic dictators, because it amused me to have to, for example, cut the shit out of Joseph Brodstito's ass dreadlocks. Like, that's just kind of funny, right? Yeah. But this particular- Their goat was really cute, so I decided I wanted to give him a mirthful name. And I told Sophie, my producer, I'm gonna call him P. Diddy. Now, let me say here, I'm not a pop culture guy. I didn't know anything other than like P. Diddy was like a rapper.

• 6:59Robert Evans?

  I actually didn't realize how into gangster rap he was, cuz again, not super aware of all this stuff. I was just like, oh, he's like a Snoop Dogg type figure, right?

• 7:08Speaker 04

  His image has never particularly been gangster rap, like, not, well, I mean, like his earlier-

• 7:12Robert Evans?

  Not since he was having people killed, yeah.

• 7:15Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah, he definitely took-

• 7:16Speaker 05

  It was more mogul.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. That is a great way to say it. It's like, he was, he was, he was the guy who has companies, the alcohol, Serac. He's got, you know, he's got this, he's got shoes, he's got clothing, he's got all this stuff. Like, he definitely shifted like Ice Cube did to Disney movies. Like, it was like that immediate, like, oh, man, you can get away with so- not accusing Ice Cube of anything. But you can get away with so much more-

• 7:38Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  If you look a different way than the guy who's like involved in multiple deaths and shootings, you know?

• 7:44Robert Evans?

  Yeah. And yeah, so, so like that was, I was like, oh, just named P. Diddy, that's a fun name, right? Uh, anyway, Sophie did her job, which is to dive in front of bullets for her host, uh, as a producer.

• 7:56Speaker 05

  Called the Wednesday.

• 7:58Robert Evans?

  Yeah, and, and said, no, you cannot name your goat after Diddy because he's a monster. And I was like, oh, and I looked into him and there wasn't a ton out at the time. And then he got raided by the FBI a few months later. And I was like, oh, Sophie was right!

• 8:11Speaker 04

  It only took a minute.

• 8:13Robert Evans?

  Didn't take long.

• 8:14Speaker 04

  It only gonna take a minute.

• 8:15Robert Evans?

  Did not take long.

• 8:16Speaker 05

  It was a well-known secret most of my entire life living in Los Angeles.

• 8:22Robert Evans?

  I had missed it, yeah.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Everybody, everybody, if you're like in a certain like kinda scene around the world, in like the, in the industry in LA, it's like you will always hear that, like, some old, like, you know, it's like the caterers. It's the people that are like the, the service workers of the, of the world, you know, the engineers, the white dude in a room full of rappers, sitting at the desk, that's like, oh shit. Really? They just say this out loud? And it's like, sometimes it's secondhand, sometimes, but it's like, you'll hear these things and it'll be like, some older like grizzly dude that's like, yeah, man, don't ever, don't ever work for Kanye, man.

• 9:00Speaker 05

  Or, or famously- Don't go to a Diddy party.

• 9:03Robert Evans?

  Don't go to a Diddy party.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  Don't hang out with Diddy.

• 9:07Robert Evans?

  I had even watched earlier this year that movie Blink Twice and I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting, you know, and then I real, I find out later like, oh, it's supposed to be about Diddy. Like, this was a veiled way of talking about this guy. So, if you're like me, or if you're someone who knows more about Diddy, uh, you know, the question is, how did, how did all this, like, how did this guy get to where he is and get to do what he did for so long without having a downfall? And we are going to answer that question and more this week on Behind the Bastards, a podcast about people I almost named goats after.

• 9:45Robert Evans?

  And we're back. So, Sean John Combs, uh, which is kind of Sean John, uh, which is the name of the, the clothing brand he's going to make later, was born on November 4th, 1969 in Harlem, New York. Uh, he was the son of Janice Combs, a former model who worked as a teacher's assistant most of his childhood. Uh, his father, Melvin Earl Combs, had served in the air force, but later in life became a drug dealer. Uh, he also, he worked for a guy named Frank Lucas. And does the name Frank Lucas mean anything to y'all?

• 10:17Speaker 04

  Hmm, no.

• 10:18Robert Evans?

  He is, if you've seen American Gangster, that's the guy Denzel plays in American Gangster.

• 10:24Speaker 04

  Okay, alright.

• 10:25Robert Evans?

  Sean's dad works for a very serious gangster. It's like, played by Denzel Sirius, right? It's, as a side, if your goal is to make a movie about, like, crime is bad, don't have Denzel play the gangster. That's just gotta make me wanna be a gangster. Everyone wants to-

• 10:41Speaker 04

  It's the Aaron Teller Johnson of situation, you know? You gotta get like, you know, the right kind of feel for people.

• 10:48Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 10:48Speaker 05

  Denzel's so handsome. What are they doing?

• 10:51Robert Evans?

  It was like the Gladiator 2 movie, really wouldn't, like, it would have been a totally different film-

• 10:55Speaker 04

  I thought he was a good guy the whole time. I watched the whole movie.

• 10:58Robert Evans?

  Yeah, I was like, no, I'm on board.

• 10:59Speaker 04

  I watched the whole movie and thought he was a good guy. Get him.

• 11:02Robert Evans?

  Oh, I guess we weren't supposed to like this guy.

• 11:03Speaker 04

  Oh, is he bad? I'm so confused, man.

• 11:07Robert Evans?

  It's Denzel, he's wearing purple, what's not to like?

• 11:10Speaker 04

  He looked regal as fuck, I was just like, oh man, I just-

• 11:13Robert Evans?

  He should be the emperor!

• 11:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, this seems fair.

• 11:17Robert Evans?

  Um, yeah, so, tragically, Melvin Combs was never played by Denzel in a movie. Instead, he was assassinated, shot dead in his car in Central Park when he was 33 years old.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  Yikes.

• 11:29Robert Evans?

  Sean, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is, uh, Diddy's dad.

• 11:32Speaker 04

  That is a young one.

• 11:33Robert Evans?

  Yes, yes. Uh, Sean is two years old at the time, so he never really knows his father. Uh, as a little boy, his dad's death served as a constant reminder of the consequences of crime as a lifestyle, or at least that's what he would say. I don't know how true that is, because again, very involved in crimes.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  You know, seems more like it was like a lesson on, like, don't be the guy in the car getting smoked at 33, you know?

• 11:56Robert Evans?

  Be the guy who Denzel winds up playing, right?

• 11:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:59Robert Evans?

  Be up a couple of levels.

• 12:00Speaker 04

  You know, you got, you got some more wiggle room up there.

• 12:03Robert Evans?

  Uh huh. Yeah, don't be a private, be a general, yeah.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 12:07Robert Evans?

  Um, so his mom moved the family out of Harlem not long after Melvin's death, taking them to Mount Vernon, a suburb of, in Westchester County. Now, as an adult going by the name P. Diddy, Sean would make a lot of statements about the poverty he was raised in, because if you are coming up in hip-hop in the way he did, you wanna like, act like you came from a really hard background.

• 12:26Speaker 04

  I mean, this is, uh, we will probably talk about this, I'm sure, eventually at some point, but like, this is the Tupac thing, like, he went to, he went to like, a performing arts school, like, he didn't grow up, I mean, his mom was a revolutionary, you know, activist or whatever, but he came up in a pretty decent kind of lifestyle, and it wasn't until he got into that east coast, west coast beef that he gangstered up hard.

• 12:47Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, whereas, uh, I mean, we're gonna talk about Biggie. Biggie does come from like, a rough background.

• 12:53Speaker 04

  Right, selling cocaine instead of making record deals.

• 12:56Robert Evans?

  Uh, yeah, now, uh, and obviously Sean is massively exaggerating how rough his, uh, background was. I don't wanna minimize like, his dad getting shot when he's two, but his mom is like Tupac's mom, one of these people who works incredibly hard and is very responsible. She gives her kid a, a good degree, gives a lot of stability and comfort. Uh, Sean goes to a prestigious private- School, Mount St. Michael. It's a Catholic school. His family is very Catholic. He wears a uniform. He plays football. His mom describes him in interviews as having been an entrepreneur from a young age, starting his own paper, and not in the way that you often mean that in hip out. He starts, he starts a paper route as a kid, right?

• 13:37Robert Evans?

  In order to make money. She told The New Yorker, "We had a Cadillac car and a house, and he liked life like that," right?

• 13:43Speaker 05

  Was, was the actual quote that he was an entrepreneur at an early age? That was a direct quote?

• 13:50Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  Some Connor Roy ass shit. Connor Roy was interested in politics at a young age.

• 13:55Robert Evans?

  There will be a lot of other stories like that.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  It's all, again, I mean, this has been brought up many times on the show, but when kids show, kids show too much aptitude for something at a young age, you gotta worry about it, you know?

• 14:07Robert Evans?

  When your kid says he wants to be a CEO, look, I'm, I'm not saying you should do this legally, but maybe get him into drugs, you know? Slow him down a little bit. Slow him down a little bit.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  Look, I got two kids now, you know, it's not, you don't just give them drugs, you leave them around.

• 14:21Robert Evans?

  You just leave them on the street. They'll figure it out.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, put them outside and don't watch them enough.

• 14:29Speaker 04

  Like my parents did.

• 14:30Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, that's. And we all turned out great. Your children could also be having lightbulb fights in the streets of Santa Monica.

• 14:40Robert Evans?

  And winning a Grammy.

• 14:42Speaker 04

  And winning Grammys.

• 14:43Robert Evans?

  Yeah, so, one story Diddy likes to tell is of the time his aunt babysat him at her home, which was in a public housing project called the Patterson Houses in the Bronx. So again, his mom gets out to the suburbs, they own a home, other members of his family obviously are a lot less comfortable, and the story he tells is that he wakes up, sometimes he'll say, "I woke up with 15 cockroaches on my face," which, you didn't count the cockroaches, nobody would in that situation.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  You can feel, you can feel a dozen cockroaches, but you can't count them as fat.

• 15:12Robert Evans?

  You don't know the exact number, man. And in other recitations, he's less specific. I'm not saying this didn't happen, I think it probably did, just knowing the other stuff about his life. But he also places-

• 15:21Speaker 04

  I've lived in decent places where these cockroaches were on my face.

• 15:24Robert Evans?

  I too have woken up with some cockroaches. On my face. This apparently inspired him to seek wealth and success. Quote, and this is from him years later. I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm gonna get out of here. I'm gonna be somebody. I'm gonna own something and be able to take care of my family. I don't want to live in these conditions no more. And again, you know, I'm not, maybe something like this happened. He also does bring it up exactly the way you would if you're trying to like, throw out in interviews scenes that people will put in a biopic about you, right?

• 15:56Speaker 04

  Right, yeah, for sure. That one sound bite that grabs you at the perfect time and they're like, yeah, man, like, that's it.

• 16:02Robert Evans?

  You're never gonna be anything, B Diddy.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  You'll never make it, kid.

• 16:07Robert Evans?

  You're gonna go down just like your father.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  Dead in the back of a car.

• 16:13Robert Evans?

  Now, Diddy would later claim that the memory of this harrowing event inspired him whenever he made a change in his career. It was something that just kind of snaps on you. Don't take less in life and fight back. Those roaches still to this day, whenever I get comfortable, I just remember them. I remember living in a situation where babies weren't changed for two or three days and everything smells and there's no food. The memory is the thing that really fuels me to make sure that one day, none of us have to live like that. And, Diddy, you didn't do anything to make sure none of us had to live like that. And you didn't live like that, right?

• 16:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. He made sure he don't live like that.

• 16:45Robert Evans?

  Yeah, you made sure you didn't have to live that way, but.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  Fair enough.

• 16:50Robert Evans?

  Yeah, fair enough.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  No, but that's it, I mean, like, that is often, you know, whether true or not, you know, like, there's definitely probably essences of that, you know, like, of being true, because like, you know, like, that is the story of a lot of people in America right now. It's like going through some really tough times and like seeing, trying to like get through, and like, that is often the story, especially when it comes to successful people in the music industry. It's like, hey, man, I came up hard. Used to be anyways, it's more nepo babies these days.

• 17:18Robert Evans?

  Yeah, it's more nepo babies.

• 17:20Speaker 04

  Music was the great equalizer, you know, it's like you could be poor and from nowhere and become the biggest in the world. That's, that's what music used to be, so.

• 17:28Robert Evans?

  Yeah, and it's, I mean, like everything, it becomes more oligarchic as it fucking ages and gets sclerotic. But like, it's also not weird, you know, I. Can say I didn't, I wouldn't say I had a hard upbringing. My parents were like, poor when I was a little kid. Financial stress is like a lot of my earliest memories. And that's definitely part of why I have gone after money as an adult, right? Is because like, I didn't want to have screaming fights in front of my partner about the fact that we couldn't afford rent or whatever, you know?

• 17:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 17:55Robert Evans?

  Like, that's, a lot of people have had that experience. A lot of people deal with that now. It sucks ass. Like, so I, I don't doubt that some version of this is true, right? That he encountered a lot of poverty around his family and was like, well, fuck that shit, right?

• 18:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:09Robert Evans?

  Yeah. And I do think it's interesting that like, his connections with financial desperation are not direct. They're family members, right? So he always, there's always this sense of like, I'm separate too, from this, from the hardship, right? Like, it's not direct to me, which is interesting. Now, it's worth noting that Diddy, as an adult, told lots of inspirational stories about moments from his childhood that inspired him to later greatness. And maybe all of these are bullshit, but, you know, let's hear them out.

• 18:35Speaker 04

  That's definitely a market he has, is like, the inspirational I climbed out of this, like, even in his verses.

• 18:41Robert Evans?

  So can you?

• 18:42Speaker 04

  But, but that's not also, that's not exclusive to him. That's a lot of rap as well, you know, like, so, you know, it is, it kind of goes hand in hand. It's a, it's a bit of that, like, that, that tale of like, rising up out of the worst situations that makes like, so many people respect and understand you as a, as a rapper, so.

• 19:00Robert Evans?

  And I'll, I'll even say that's not, you know, that's a thing that rap gets from the same source that a lot of, because you see that in evangelical Christianity. The whole like, I was, you know, down and out, low, high rising and low sliding, popping reds and busting heads, kicking indoors and banging whores. And then I met Jesus, you know, that sort of fucking deal.

• 19:19Speaker 04

  Praise the Lord.

• 19:20Robert Evans?

  It's this thing everybody gets from like, you know, power of positive thinking, like hustle culture, where it's like, okay, you gotta have like, the down and out story, and then I had my realization, and like, you can do it too. It works for everything. It's not just MLMs.

• 19:35Speaker 04

  And, and just to tag on to that, I literally was just making fun of nepo babies, because it was like, so it's like, the opposite is literally when it comes to most of creative culture, to be considered the worst you can be. To have privilege and everything, that's considered like, the worst, because it's like, whoa, well, you, you don't have to learn guitar for, on a guitar that only had three strings. And like, you know, was given to you by blind Willie down on the corner who definitely had tuberculosis and left us early type shit, you know?

• 20:02Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, that's just, that's just the way you like frame things if you want Americans to, if you want to be a fucking mogul. Um, anyway, here's a quote from something he said later in a CNN article. "One day when he was a child, he asked his mother for a new pair of sneakers, but she couldn't afford them. He recalled in a 2016 CNN interview that his mother almost began to cry upon hearing his request. That day, he said, 'My hustle was born.'" And he's got a lot of, "That day, my hustle was born."

• 20:29Speaker 04

  That was the one day.

• 20:31Robert Evans?

  His mom being like, "We had a Cadillac," maybe she's exaggerating because she doesn't want to admit that things were harder than they were. But I kind of think it might just be more that he wanted expensive sneakers and his mom wasn't like, "No, we don't have the money." His mom was like, "No, you don't need those sneakers."

• 20:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:44Robert Evans?

  "I'm not gonna spend $200 on fucking sneakers for you."

• 20:46Speaker 04

  It wasn't, it wasn't my mom being like, "We, we could go to Goodwill and find you a nice, nice pair that you'll grow into," type thing. It was like, it was like, "Oh, you want $300 Nikes? Like, hard, hard pass."

• 20:57Robert Evans?

  Yeah, it's, it's less, it's a lot less inspirational to be like, my story, which is like, "I wanted a computer that could play Starcraft," and my mom said, "No, you don't need that." I was like, "Well, I want to be able to buy my own computers when I grow up," right? Like, that's not an inspirational story. That's not, like, yeah, nobody's gonna put that in the biopic, you know, the music swells and you get a fucking razor.

• 21:21Robert Evans?

  So, yeah, one thing that we can definitely mark as a turning point in his life was a football injury that he acquired while playing for Mount St. Michael Academy. He will always say, "I was gonna be in the NFL. I was good enough to be in the NFL." He'll kind of insinuate he was being scouted by the NFL. I don't know that he was.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  I'm not entirely sure, but I'm pretty sure he's like 5'9" or something, right? He's like, he's not a big guy.

• 21:43Robert Evans?

  He's not a big guy, but there's, there's positions for shorter guys.

• 21:46Speaker 04

  Sure, for sure.

• 21:47Speaker 05

  Just to say, for the record, the amount of men that have told me, "I was going to be..."

• 21:51Speaker 04

  I could have been a contender.

• 21:52Speaker 05

  "I was going to be in, insert professional sporting league here."

• 21:57Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 05

  You're like, sir?

• 21:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. When I was in the Marines, there used to be a joke about, um, you know, everybody was gonna go to a great college. They had a full ride to go to a great college, and they were all varsity, whatever, and they were gonna... One of the dudes in my platoon, he, it was so funny. He started off saying that he was gonna be, he was scouted to be the quarterback at USC. And when everybody was like, dude, you were not scouted to be the quarterback. That's a prestigious position. We could have, we would have seen that. You would have been in like, in the news and shit. Like, that's a big deal. And he was like, I didn't say quarterback. I said cornerback. You know, it was like, that was, that was his way out of it.

• 22:32Robert Evans?

  Sure, man.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  Cornerback, you know? One dude, I remember, he used to, he had like, one of his pecs was bigger than the other, and he said, yeah, man, I was, I was gonna play quarterback, and, and that my coach always had me bench in one side only, you know? And that's why my, I was like, what? No one would do that. No one would. So, I swear to God, every guy in the entire world, if they played sports for like, five seconds, has like, a, oh, I was almost, uh, you know, story.

• 22:59Robert Evans?

  Could have been great. Could have been great. Then I broke my leg. Yeah.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  I ran for 12 touchdowns.

• 23:03Speaker 05

  If you've ever done that to me, just know, I was like, hmm, bullshit.

• 23:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. There's a certain, uh, inner bullshit detector, I feel like you definitely have. Like, you kinda like, it's like the Sophie eye roll, where it's just like, huh, yeah, like, just, yeah, yeah, that, right there, the smirk and the, uh-huh.

• 23:19Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 05

  Sure, pal.

• 23:20Robert Evans?

  It's a crucial life skill to develop.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  Sure, you've won a Grammy. I bet you have.

• 23:26Robert Evans?

  That's why you keep it directly behind you? Oh, man. Um, now, I will say, whether or not he was almost in the NFL, his team was very good. They won the division title in 1986, I think, when he's a junior. So, like, he does play on a very good team. I'm sure he was not bad at it. I just don't know that he was in the NFL. Uh, that said, he does break his leg in his last year of high school badly on the field, which ruins his pro dreams. Now, as a fun aside, Will...

• 23:56Robert Evans?

  Well, I was re- you're gonna love this. While I was researching these articles, I found an old 2012 interview in the New York Times with Diddy. This is back during his, you know, mogul, you know, generally popular phase. And the, the article was about a movie that he had helped produce called "Undefeated." This was based on an Oscar-nominated documentary about a real-life high school football coach named Bill Courtney, who was apparently pretty good. I don't know much about high school football coaches.

• 24:23Speaker 04

  You're from Texas. How do you not know much about high schoo-? It's like, I thought you'd believe that there.

• 24:27Robert Evans?

  I fucking played high school football, or middle school. I forget which year I was in football, but I played football.

• 24:32Speaker 04

  I did a sport once.

• 24:34Robert Evans?

  Yeah. I, I was not almost in the NFL.

• 24:37Speaker 04

  It wasn't as fun as drugs, so...

• 24:42Robert Evans?

  Now, that I could've gone pro in, Will.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 24:44Robert Evans?

  I could've been, I really could've been in the, uh, in the NFL of drugs.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  Absolutely. I still feel like I have a chance. Like, I feel like I got like a Field of Dreams chance, in fact, you know, like...

• 24:55Robert Evans?

  I do, I do wanna see the, uh, the Field of Dreams of drugs. It's like, they, they put up a table in a field and just like drugs start materializing. Fucking John Belushi walks out of a cloud.

• 25:09Speaker 04

  Willie Nelson is like, he's not even dead, but he's the guy that gets to walk back on the field and get younger? He's the Ray Liotta, right?

• 25:16Robert Evans?

  Andy Dick pulls himself up out of a sewer?

• 25:20Speaker 04

  Oh my god.

• 25:23Speaker 04

  If you build it, they will come. The biggest bong ever, and just like a table of cocaine.

• 25:30Robert Evans?

  Oh, we could make this movie.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  So, I feel like someone is going to rip this off from us. We better act quickly.

• 25:38Robert Evans?

  Back to, back to this story. So, Diddy produces this mo- or helps to produce this movie about this high school football's coach named Bill Courtney, and he's interviewed in the Times about it. And in the interview, Combs talks about his, his own football experiences in high school. And he laments, "I didn't have a coach like Bill Courtney who stood by me and helped motivate me in everything. I was envious, to be honest." And he's kind of insinuating that a better of coach might've helped him overcome his broken leg or whatever. Anyway-

• 26:04Speaker 04

  He could've healed me with his witch doctor ways.

• 26:06Robert Evans?

  Right, right, right. Anyway, the best part of that interview, though, is that Combs was working as a producer on the remake of that documentary with the Weinstein Company. And the interview with him in The Times includes this line next, quote, "Combs said he and Harvey Weinstein had been 'trying to do something together for seven years.'" And yeah, bro, I'll bet you guys were. I'll bet you had a couple of projects you were in on.

• 26:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It is almost like, I hate whenever people start like, because like, every time some of this stuff comes out, you know, that like, a certain person's like a greasebag.

• 26:43Robert Evans?

  Massive sex criminal, yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  Then it's like, every person that's ever been in a picture with them is suspect, you know? And it's like, oh, this person, this person, this person. And it's like, yeah, but like, not all those people are actually doing bad shit. Some of them are just taking advantage of somebody's like, status to up themselves a little bit, or meet people, or whatever. But also, yeah, a lot of times they are all together.

• 27:03Robert Evans?

  Yeah, a lot of times, the whole Harvey Weinstein connection maybe should have been assigned.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, a lot of times, they're absolutely running a fucking little circle jerk over there with each other, you know?

• 27:12Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah. Now, it was during Sean's high school years that he first acqui-- oh, actually, you know what? Speaking of Sean's high school years, you know what'll help you get through high school?

• 27:21Speaker 04

  Drugs?

• 27:21Robert Evans?

  Well, and the products and services that support this podcast.

• 27:25Speaker 04

  Fair enough.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Games on a break? Instead of doom scrolling, try rips on Underdog. Rip real player cards worth real money, right there in the app. It's instant cash in the palm of your hand. Buy a digital pack, rip it open on your phone, and reveal a real, physical card. Football, basketball, Pokemon, yes, Pokemon, and more. The best part? Packs start at just $5. And if you pull something you don't want to let go of just yet, have it shipped straight to your door. Want the cash? Sell it back instantly at 100% of its fair market value. No listing, no negotiating, no stranger asking if you'll trade it for a used jet ski, even though jet skis are super sick. Best part? There are some serious grails in the mix, with maximum

• 28:11Speaker 01

  card values reaching up to $125,000, depending on your pack tier. You can also check the live odds and see what you could pull before you rip, and what other cards are being pulled by fans. Download Underdog and get in on the chase. Get five free rips packs when you deposit $5. Real rips, real cards, real cash. Only on Underdog. Unleash your dog. 18+ Terms apply. Top grails are extremely rare.

• 28:36Robert Evans?

  This ad is brought to you by ViiV Healthcare, the makers of Devoto Dolutegravir Lamivudine. If you're living with HIV, do learn about Devoto. Devoto is a complete HIV treatment by prescription only for some people 12 and older. Your doctor will determine if Devoto is right for you. Most HIV pills contain three or four medicines. Devoto is as effective with just two. No other complete HIV pill contains fewer medicines than Devoto.

• 29:00Speaker 06

  It is unknown if Devoto is safe and effective if you have HIV and hepatitis B. If you have Hep B, don't stop Devoto without talking to your doctor, as it may get worse or harder to treat. Don't take Devoto if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking Dofetilide due to serious or life-threatening side effects. If you have a rash or allergic reaction symptoms, stop Devoto and get medical help right away. Other serious or life-threatening side effects include severe liver problems and lactic acid buildup. If you're female or obese, you may be more at risk. Tell your doctor about your medicines or supplements, medical conditions, liver or kidney problems, pregnancy, breastfeeding, or planned pregnancy.

• 29:35Robert Evans?

  Do ask your doctor about fewer medicines. Visit devoto.com or call 1-877-844-8872.

• 29:45Robert Evans?

  And we're back. I hope you've all graduated and you are ready for the rest of the pod.

• 29:51Speaker 04

  And don't join the military like I did, because it is not going to be a good idea. When you graduate, man, do anything else.

• 30:00Robert Evans?

  But the recruiter said, "I can even pick my MOS."

• 30:06Speaker 04

  Did I ever tell you that I had a friend that thought he was joining the Marine Corps snowboarding team?

• 30:13Speaker 04

  His recruiter literally showed him pictures of dudes on snowboards and was like, "Yeah, man, if you..." He was like from Colorado and he thought he was joining... He was like two weeks into being in the fleet. And he was like, "So..."

• 30:25Robert Evans?

  When is the snowboarding, Scott?

• 30:27Speaker 04

  The guy from the snowboarding team gonna like hit me up? Or like, "How do I get over there?" Like, "Bro, we are deploying for Iraq in like seven minutes."

• 30:36Speaker 04

  You are not going to the Marine Corps. There isn't even a Marine Corps snowboarding team.

• 30:41Robert Evans?

  There ought to be like an Olympic for military recruiter lies. The snowboarding ones up there.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  Oh my God, there's so many beautiful... I had another friend who literally, the recruiter, he came in and he was like, "Yeah, man, I want to be in infantry." He's like, and the recruiter like, like, slow-played him. He's like, "Well, I don't know, man. It's, it's pretty exclusive."

• 31:01Speaker 04

  And he got on the phone with like his master sergeant in the back room.

• 31:06Robert Evans?

  He's like a car dealer being like, "My boss agreed. We'd never do this."

• 31:10Speaker 04

  "We're gonna do what we can for you. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna hook you up, man. You seem like a pretty, pretty wise individual." You know, you really, you belong up in infantry, man. "We can get you in, man."

• 31:22Robert Evans?

  Fuck. So, it was during Sean's high school years that he first acquired the nickname Puffy, and we have two different stories for how that happened. Here's the first as related in an article on Hip Hop Insider. "He used to puff out his chest to make his body seem bigger, which is where the name originated." Maybe that's true.

• 31:38Speaker 04

  That's what his mom said. I remember seeing his mom in an interview that said the same thing, that that's where it came from. That he used to, because he wasn't a big dude, back to the point earlier.

• 31:47Robert Evans?

  And there's a slightly different story that he told in 1998 to Jet Magazine. "Whenever I got mad as a kid, I used to always huff and puff. I had a temper. That's when my friends started calling me Puffy." Um, yeah, but, you know, they're not necessarily.

• 32:00Speaker 04

  I mean, you know, they're not at odds with each other. They might be both the same.

• 32:04Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like one of those fish.

• 32:06Speaker 04

  Yeah. Anytime he's threatened, he gets big.

• 32:10Robert Evans?

  Oh, man, and pufferfish, infamous sex criminals. Do not let your friends go home alone with a pufferfish.

• 32:16Speaker 04

  I remember that in Finding Nemo. That was one of the subplots of Finding Nemo, is that pufferfish were sex criminals.

• 32:22Robert Evans?

  Yes, yeah.

• 32:23Speaker 04

  At least pests. There are sex pests.

• 32:25Robert Evans?

  Sex pests, sex pests, yeah. So, with football out of the way, young Sean leaned into the other, less discussed, aspect of his personality, which was that he was kind of an artsy theater kid. Diddy had a reputation at his private school for being neatly dressed, uh, you know, and in college for wearing designer clothes, which he funded through a variety of legal entrepreneurial ventures. For example, in between classes, this is again when he's at college, he's at Howard University, uh, he would operate a shuttle service to the airport, and he would also sell his old term papers, T-shirts, and soda to his classmates. So again, entrepreneur, but not exactly a gangster.

• 33:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:00Robert Evans?

  Ro Ronan's book, Bad Boy, which covers Diddy's influence on the hip-hop industry, paints a picture of a young man who was beyond everything else, an opportunist. Uh, at one point, while he- And at Howard, there's this massive protest campaign on the campus over the presence of Lee Atwater on the university board of trustees. And again, Howard is a historically black university.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  Right.

• 33:21Robert Evans?

  Lee Atwater is the author of the Republican Party's infamous "Southern Strategy", which I cannot relate directly to you without using the N-word repeatedly.

• 33:29Speaker 04

  You had me at Republican Party. You had, I was there, I was there already, you were just edging me from there.

• 33:38Robert Evans?

  The basic idea of the strategy that Lee Atwater helps put together is that you can't campaign in 1968, or before 68, you can campaign by just screaming about black people and saying you want to hurt them, right? By 68, you can't do that. So you have to instead campaign on issues that will hurt black people, but that you can pretend aren't racist, like fiscal conservatism, cutting programs that help black Americans without calling them slurs, right? That's Lee Atwater. So obviously, Howard University students are like, "The fuck is this guy doing on the board of trustees?"

• 34:08Speaker 04

  Hey, bro, you forgot your hood, man, let me set you up.

• 34:11Robert Evans?

  Yeah. That is essentially the tenor of the protest campaign. Now, Sean's peers rightly thought it was fucked up for this guy to have a seat on the Howard Board, and they do win. I'm gonna, spoiler, he winds up stepping down.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Man, every now and then, plugging a CEO in broad daylight on a city street does something.

• 34:28Robert Evans?

  Right.

• 34:29Speaker 04

  Protests work.

• 34:31Robert Evans?

  Protests can work. So there's this big protest campaign, there's like clashes with riot police, they occupy buildings on campus, it's a whole thing.

• 34:40Speaker 04

  How far you have to go to get one white man fired from Howard?

• 34:43Robert Evans?

  One white man fired, yeah. In the book "It Was All A Dream," culture journalist Justin Tinsley writes this of sophomore Sean Combs's involvement in this protest campaign. "For Combs, the student protests in the spring of 89 presented an opportunity to unite the student body and put some money in his pockets at the same time. Combs took images from the protests, photos of students and police clashing, and students being whisked away, and printed up some posters. And he like sells posters based on this."

• 35:11Speaker 04

  Sells posters?

• 35:12Robert Evans?

  So he's like, he's a profiteer.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  All right, yeah.

• 35:14Robert Evans?

  Yeah. A write-up by Chris Malone goes further. "Future producer and coworker of Diddy's Derek D. Angelotti..." was at Howard at the same time as Diddy and saw how he made a quick buck from the protests. In the 2003 Notorious B.I.G. documentary Unbelievable, he spoke about Diddy's photo enterprise during the protests. "He made hundreds of them and sold them for ten and fifteen dollars apiece," Angeletti said. "That's the type of guy I saw. All this protest shit is well and good, but who's getting paid off it?" He was ready.

• 35:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. This is the eighties?

• 35:44Robert Evans?

  Yeah, eighty-nine.

• 35:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, I mean, yeah, so ten to fifteen bucks, that's, that's a lot of money, too. That's not, that's not cheap. Like, we think of ten to fifteen bucks now, but in eighty-nine, ten to fifteen bucks, like...

• 35:55Robert Evans?

  Yeah, it was like seven hundred, eight hundred dollars, yeah.

• 35:57Speaker 04

  It's, it's like, whatever.

• 35:59Robert Evans?

  It's a lot more money.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  Whatever the math works out to, but yes, absolutely.

• 36:03Robert Evans?

  Yeah, this was back when a dime bag cost ten dollars, and that wasn't cheap.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  There used to be, I remember.

• 36:10Robert Evans?

  We used to be a country!

• 36:12Speaker 04

  We had onions on our belts. It was a style at the time.

• 36:15Robert Evans?

  At the time, yeah, yeah. Amusingly enough, in 2009, Diddy made statements in support of another protest movement at Howard, promising "I got y'all back" and saying "Do what we did and take it over. Let's go and do it in a peaceful way, but do it." And again, you did not take anything over. You, you sold pictures of people doing that.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  Like, we were, we're looking back through a lens, so it's easy to, like, see, like, oh, he probably was probably kind of like... But you want to believe that, like, any, when you heard this earlier, you know, Diddy telling this story, you were like, like, "Yeah, man."

• 36:49Robert Evans?

  Good for you, Diddy, yeah, good for you speaking up for the kids, yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, you did it, man, but like, and then like, hearing it in retrospect, you're just like, "Oh, you know, you know, everything that he did was slimy." He was just always pulling an angle. He was always doing something.

• 37:01Robert Evans?

  You're not facing a riot line to get Atwater fucking fired.

• 37:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 37:05Robert Evans?

  If you're one of those, if you or your parents did, good for them. That's pretty cool.

• 37:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, good for them, man.

• 37:10Robert Evans?

  Yeah. So, a good deal of our knowledge of college-age Diddy comes from Derek Angeletti, who I quoted earlier. He's the guy who described young Puffy as a flashy guy. Quote, "He was always out at the clubs and the young girls loved him." That's a creepier line in nah, modern context. "He'd be in the middle of the floor doing all the new dance moves and his style of dress was a little..." A little more colorful, bolder. Everyone took notice of this cool, overconfident young dude. I was DJing at the time and one night he came up to me and said, I'd like to throw a party with you. You're pretty popular. And that's kind of how Diddy, Diddy's really good at recognizing people that other people like. That's his primary talent. He becomes a billionaire off the basis of that.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  You will definitely see, especially in the music industry, there are so many, there's such a, a wide ranging, culture of that being the thing, you know? It's like the Lou Pearlman or the, or the, or, you know, or, or the, the Diddy or the Jay-Z with Rock, Rockefeller. You know, it's like Roc Nation, you know? It's like all these different organizations, that's what they're looking for all the time is like, who is the thing that other people can look at and be, cause like, that's what it takes. You have to have, you have to have a, a stable of, of people for everything. To have a party, you gotta have the best caterer in the world, but you also gotta have the best DJ. And you also gotta have, you know, it's like, that's what all those people are the best at is collecting a whole bunch of the best ofs that they know.

• 38:34Robert Evans?

  Yeah. And that's like, I mean, honestly, like that's, that's also just an entertainment industry thing. Like, you know, Sophie and I, that's a skill we have in a different way, right? Like I,

• 38:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, you got a stable of really cool podcasts.

• 38:45Robert Evans?

  Yeah, years ago, I'm reading this Ed Zitron guy and I'm like, I bet he could be a podcaster. You know, like that's just, that is just kind of the industry too. That's like how you, you know, and, and he's going, Diddy's gonna be one of the best at it, right?

• 38:57Speaker 04

  You will unify the entirety of all podcasters in the world. Take over.

• 39:04Robert Evans?

  Or start an east coast, west coast podcast rivalry. Get Ed shot in a fucking conflict with one of the NPR guys.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Oh my God.

• 39:16Robert Evans?

  Oh, man.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  Another movie idea. You guys are welcome.

• 39:20Robert Evans?

  Great movie. I'm, I'm making Ed the Biggie Smalls of podcasting.

• 39:25Speaker 04

  Sorry, man, you're cooked.

• 39:28Robert Evans?

  Enjoy the next couple of years, buddy.

• 39:32Robert Evans?

  So Combs took things a few steps further than most people who throw popular parties on campus by sometimes successfully convincing or paying celebrities to show up. He included his name on flyers with their name, which is part of how he would brand himself, right? You're attaching yourself to celebrity. You're also just making sure everyone who goes to this huge party with like 1,500 people knows that's a Diddy party, right?

• 39:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, reputation is everything.

• 39:55Robert Evans?

  That, and he's good at reputation management. He prints business cards for himself that he hands out. They have his name engraved on them as Sean in parentheses, Puff Combs. Just one F. So he's still working on the nickname, right?

• 40:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, man, it's a process.

• 40:12Robert Evans?

  It's a process.

• 40:13Speaker 04

  I'm workshop some stuff here, guys. I'm doing the best I can.

• 40:16Robert Evans?

  I knew you before you were Greasy Will.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:19Robert Evans?

  His friends are like, puff? Puff? P U F? There should at least be two Fs.

• 40:24Speaker 04

  It's like damn near poof, bro. Like, I don't know, man, it's gonna be confusing.

• 40:29Robert Evans?

  Just a boardroom of guys? Oh, man. That's what am I, what am I, by the way, speaking of like ways to know people are lying, what am I, because this, this comes up periodically when people will like lie about having been in the military or special forces. If anyone ever tells you they served and they had a really cool nickname, full of shit.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:49Robert Evans?

  Nobody gets called the, like, the Avenger or fucking killer or whatever, like, no.

• 40:54Speaker 04

  It's, it's always like Sack.

• 40:56Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 04

  Or like Two Thumbs.

• 40:59Robert Evans?

  Yeah, Shitstain.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  You're like, oh, man, there's, there's nothing about Thumbs that could have been a good story.

• 41:07Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Robert Evans?

  So, uh, these parties with Diddy grow to be sizable affairs, but the biggest of them was a homecoming event at a Masonic temple. 1,500, which actually does sound pretty cool.

• 41:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, that sounds banging.

• 41:21Robert Evans?

  Yeah. 1,500 attendees were expected, but Sean's marketing of the event was so successful, more than 4,500 people showed up, which causes a problem when three times as many people show up. And this is going to be a continuing problem for him. Angeletti later claimed, "The DC police shut down the whole block and brought out the dogs. We had to get on our knees and beg them not to lock us up." Which, again, not super gangster.

• 41:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, getting on your knees and begging is not exactly fuck the police.

• 41:49Robert Evans?

  No, Biggie wouldn't have done that, I'll tell you that much.

• 41:52Speaker 04

  Tupac would have shot those cops, 100%. Tupac would have shot those cops. And he wasn't even that gangster, man. But he would have shot them cops. Snoop Dogg would have shot them cops, man. We forget, man, this guy's hosting New Year's Celebration. But that guy would shoot some cops.

• 42:08Robert Evans?

  That guy was hardcore. That was Martha Stewart's friend. Weekly parties were all well and good for getting attention, but Sean wanted much more out of life. And he quickly decided a business administration degree from Howard wasn't going to get it for him. So he drops out and he starts begging record executives in New York for jobs, using his party planning career as a resume. This did not work, but when he reduced the request from job to unpaid internship, he got a yes from Uptown Records's Andre Harrell. Now, this is not a guy I had heard of before, but Sheila Flynn for The Independent describes him as the man who, quote, famously coined the term ghetto fabulous. So, yeah, that's Andre Harrell. He's a big guy in the industry.

• 42:51Robert Evans?

  She describes his time interning for Uptown this way. Combs initially commuted weekly between college and his hometown, working 80-hour weeks as he literally ran to complete errands for his record superiors. And it wasn't long before he quit Howard altogether. By 1991, Harrell had installed him as an A and R executive, and Combs was forging a reputation for identifying and molding top-tier talent. So he goes very quickly from unpaid intern to paid executive. He's very good at this. He works like crazy and he's got an incredible eye for talent. And this is also 91. Rap is exploding.

• 43:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect timing for it all. So just for the, there's an actual term for that in the industry called a runner. It's literally because you are, in fact, running for everything you do. You go and get things all throughout the day. It's the first job you do in almost any, like, music industry position. So it's like, this is what I did. I was an intern and then I became a runner and then an assistant engineer and then an engineer. But that's how you, like, work up with. And it's crazy. Something that people don't, like, it's not like, it's not like being an actor, right? Like, doing some of these jobs, like, what Diddy did here. Some of these jobs, it's not like being an actor. You get out here and you're Competing against just like everybody working at every diner in all of Los Angeles, right?

• 44:07Speaker 04

  Like doing some of these specific jobs like A and Rs or producers or engineers. You can get into the industry and be one step away from the top immediately. There's so many stories of that is like you get it. Your first, my first job, I lived in Texas where we met in Texas. I was playing in a metal band and then I was like, oh, I should maybe like do music for a career. I went to school for nine months, graduated from a tech school and started at the biggest studio in the world as a runner. But I was so good because my background in the military and all the stuff that I was in. I was a runner for like three weeks before I was like working for the studio as an engineer. So it was like, you're only a very, very short.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  It's like attacking the industry from a secret angle because you can do things like it's so fast. It's like your first job might be working for the president of a label, you know? If you have the right aptitude for the type of stuff, it could happen just like that. Now it's still competitive and everything, you know, and it's really hard. But it's, it's a different thing from like being like an actor or a musician. We're competing against thousands and thousands of people in the same proximity, trying to do that job. It's kind of like a hack to get into the industry.

• 45:23Robert Evans?

  Well, there you go, folks. You could have your own Grammy and maybe even be a guest on this podcast.

• 45:29Speaker 04

  More tips like this on my Tik Tok, Greasy Will Music.

• 45:35Robert Evans?

  I don't have any tips for becoming a journalist or a writer. It's very, it's very hard and it seems like no one's doing it anymore. I don't know how it worked for us.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  Get chat GPT and just plug a subject in and then post that on a website. And that's the, there you go, you're a journalist.

• 45:53Robert Evans?

  Lord of the Rings into, into chat GPT and you too could be a novelist.

• 46:01Robert Evans?

  We're sued by the Tolkien Estate. Either way, same diff. Yeah. So, he's, you know, by 91, he's an A and R executive. So, he's, he's doing, like, while he does that, he continues throwing parties. He understands that that's number one. That's how I'm gonna meet people. That's how I'm gonna run into DJs, the people that I'm going to, like, poach, you know, as talent. He would throw what is described in one source as racially mixed daddy's house parties for street kids and preppy students from Columbia University and New York University. And this is where that's Ronan, who wrote a book about, you know, his role in hip hop, says, quote, "That's where he saw what fans were dancing to and wearing." So, this is also how he stays plugged in. Now, you know, it's, I should say, it's also how he's going to be committing a lot of his sex

• 46:45Robert Evans?

  crimes, but we'll get to that in a minute. So, yeah, daddy's house parties don't go great for a lot of people.

• 46:54Robert Evans?

  Oh, yeah, you brought your soundboard.

• 46:57Robert Evans?

  Two choices.

• 47:01Robert Evans?

  And he makes the choice next to kill nine people. So, he's 22 years old. He's going as Puff with one F. He's a college dropout and an employed record executive. And one of the acts that Sean helps bring to prominence is Jordeki. J O R D E C I. I don't know if it's-

• 47:21Speaker 04

  Jorash, the gene company?

• 47:23Robert Evans?

  Yes, yes. He discovers that, no. Jordeki is a, an R and B duo who were blowing up by 91.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  Oh, Jodacy? Wait, what are you saying?

• 47:32Robert Evans?

  Is it Jodacy? It's J O R D E C I.

• 47:34Speaker 04

  Oh, you're saying, hold on, hold on.

• 47:36Robert Evans?

  Is it Jodacy?

• 47:37Speaker 04

  I'll look it up. No, no, no, I can't.

• 47:39Speaker 05

  No, no, no. It's, it's, it's, oh, my god.

• 47:41Speaker 04

  It's not. Okay, so, hold on. What's the name? J O R D A C E?

• 47:45Speaker 05

  No, no, no. The way that Robert has it spelled, there's an R in there, but I think, I think Will is right that it's Jodacy.

• 47:51Robert Evans?

  Is it Jodacy? Okay, we'll, we'll say it's Jodacy. If that's an R and B duo, yeah.

• 47:56Speaker 05

  They're an R and B duo, yes.

• 47:57Robert Evans?

  Then that's, then it's called, look, I don't know these, but you, you know me in fucking pop culture.

• 48:02Speaker 05

  It's not Jordeki. It's a, yeah.

• 48:04Robert Evans?

  There's a D in there.

• 48:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, you know, it could be, I don't know.

• 48:08Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 04

  We might be wrong here, but.

• 48:10Robert Evans?

  Jodeci, so. No, no, no, it is, it is. Yeah, Combs decided a good way to increase Jodeci's visibility was to throw a charity basketball game, pitting two teams of rappers against each other while fans watched. The event was to be held in the City College of New York gym. Once again, Diddy did what he does best, which is promote, and so a shitload of people show up. In fact, several times as many people as can fit in the actual gym itself. This becomes a problem because Sean doesn't do anything but promote the event.

• 48:40Speaker 04

  Doesn't set up any of the safety measures, any of the staff, any of the bathrooms, none of that, no.

• 48:46Robert Evans?

  He has two of his assistants who have never run large gatherings do that. And he does not inform them, by the way, every time I do something, several times as many people as we can actually support show up, could be a problem. He just has his, tells his assistants to handle it and then forgets all about it. Largely because his attention is occupied by executing fraud to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. Because the game had been advertised as a charitable event, but like, he hadn't told anyone what charity in actuality.

• 49:12Speaker 04

  It's just a charity, yeah. What kind of charity? You know, it's like kids with stuff, they need stuff, you know?

• 49:17Robert Evans?

  Yeah, kids with problems.

• 49:20Speaker 04

  As, as someone who has been that assistant that had to organize, like, like, I've been this guy, I've been this guy that had to put together a house party with three bands and like 500 people show up and the LAPD is circling with a helicopter. And then I have to be the representative of, of, of white people to go out and talk to cops so that it's okay. You know?

• 49:44Speaker 04

  One of the artists I used to work with, he used to always be like, yo, hey, man, the cops are here, so, yeah, you wanna go, you wanna go talk to us?

• 49:52Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, man, he's like, you know, you speak like cops and like white people and stuff like, alright, I got it, I got it, yeah. Go outside like.

• 49:58Robert Evans?

  I mean, that's kids.

• 49:59Speaker 04

  Hey, gentlemen, how you doing tonight? Oh, yes, sir, absolutely, sir, you know? Oh, the dogs, you don't need those.

• 50:08Robert Evans?

  So there's no beneficiary actually selected for this party. And for the more than $24,000 in 1990s money that had been raised for the event. Further blame for what's about to happen goes to the police on duty. Sean's assistants had only coordinated with Pinkerton's security guards hired by the university. Yeah, there's Pinkertons in this.

• 50:27Speaker 04

  Everybody legendarily protective of people and safe and never hurt nobody, them Pinkertons.

• 50:33Robert Evans?

  And the university had increased the number of security guards to 23 because they started getting worried before the event. But the NYPD just sends a few guys. And when it becomes clear that more than twice as many people as expected showed up, the sergeant on scene doesn't call for backup until it's too late. Eventually, there are like 60 something officers in attendance, but it takes a while. And the sergeant on duty also ignores repeated calls by the university being like, "There's way too many people. There's way too many people. You need to do something. There's going to be a riot." And in fact, there is.

• 51:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, they ignored the neighbors at our parties too, man. They just did not listen to them.

• 51:11Robert Evans?

  So, once it becomes clear, because they have to tell this huge crowd, "Most of you are not getting in," and then the crowd gets rowdy and violent and a riot begins. The NYPD officers who were there are as useless as the NYPD tends to be whenever they're actually needed for something. And things go very badly. At 7:00 PM with far too many people crowded into the venue, the single door they had been using to funnel people in was shut. Since that door was steel and at the bottom of a stairwell with the crowd basically pushed up against it, it creates a solid barrier in a room that has four more people than are supposed to be in it. People panic and a crush develops. Dozens are injured and nine young people are crushed to death, literally asphyxiated by the weight of the crowd.

• 51:55Robert Evans?

  Medical examiners will note that like none of them had broken bones. They are just suffocated by the mass of people.

• 52:00Speaker 04

  I mean, for those of, you know, like I have been to a lot of concerts. I've been into metal music. Like, sometimes it feels kind of, you know, like, how could you be killed by a bunch of people? But like, if you have never seen a crowd or been in a crowd, like even I is like, I mean, I'm a fairly large. Person myself, like I'm not huge or anything, but like I'm and I'm pretty okay with like bad situations. I've been in some crowd crush situations that have terrified me where I'm like, this is like scary like this is bad. If you've never been in those situations, it's really easy to understand if you have like what what that's like. It's like, it's like even a few hundred people can be like that. And you're talking about three times the capacity of of a venue, you know? That's like so easy for a crowd to just crush the shit out of some people.

• 52:45Robert Evans?

  It is like one of the best survival advice pieces I can give you is if you are ever in any kind of event and upon entering, you're like, your only way to get in is to push through a crowd of people with absolutely no gaps in it. And you immediately have like the hair stand up on the back of your neck and wonder, are there too many people in this room? Fucking back the hell out. Get out. Go.

• 53:05Speaker 04

  There absolutely is, and it is not a good idea.

• 53:08Robert Evans?

  Don't fuck around with situations like that.

• 53:11Speaker 04

  Next thing you know, you're gonna be surrounded by a bunch of juggalos at an ICP concert at the electric factory and feel really uncomfortable.

• 53:21Robert Evans?

  So, um, this is a horrible, again, nine people die because of this thing that Diddy has orchestrated. One EMT.

• 53:27Speaker 04

  This is, this is early. This is episode one for deaths. Is there more than one episode of this or we one episode?

• 53:33Robert Evans?

  There's two episodes. There's more deaths to come.

• 53:36Speaker 05

  There's two, there's two, but Robert, I kind of feel like we can do this as a three parter.

• 53:41Robert Evans?

  I don't know. Maybe we'll see.

• 53:42Speaker 04

  We'll see what happens.

• 53:43Robert Evans?

  Yeah. One EMT who showed up on scene described the result as a plane crash without a plane. There were bodies all over, people calling for help. That's a very bad way for your party to be, although you and I have both thrown parties that I would describe as looking like a plane crash afterwards.

• 53:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 54:00Robert Evans?

  But a cool plane crash.

• 54:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a very cool plane crash, man.

• 54:04Robert Evans?

  You just feel like you're dead.

• 54:06Speaker 04

  It's like where people are like, man, that was the best night of my life type plane crash, you know?

• 54:10Robert Evans?

  Yeah, um, like the plane crash in Yellowjackets. I haven't finished Yellowjackets. I assume it goes well for those girls.

• 54:16Speaker 04

  It goes well. Yeah, no cannibalism.

• 54:20Robert Evans?

  This would mark the first time that Sean Combs drew media attention in a big way. New York Newsday was one of the papers who first got. reporters on scene and years later, one of them recalled being told by a colleague, "The organizer was some guy called Puff Daddy." "In the days that followed, it became clear that a substantial amount of the blame for this disaster lay with Puff Daddy." "Puff Daddy, Puff Daddy." A report compiled afterwards by the mayor's office read, "Mr. Combs spent little time making the actual preparation for the game and delegated most, if not all, of the arrangements to Lewis Tucker and Terri Gettr, both of whom claimed to have no prior experience with such events." I found a fun article in the Columbia Journalism Review by one of the reporters who covered the crush, and this is, you know, him writing after Diddy has been disgraced.

• 55:03Robert Evans?

  His piece ended with this line, "I do remember thinking, 'Man, this puffy guy can't have much of a future after this.'"

• 55:12Robert Evans?

  "Oh, let me tell you about America, my brother."

• 55:15Speaker 04

  This is, this is the thing, though, too, is like, it's like, you know, that happened, right? But I can't tell you how many events, how many things I've been to that have been like, you know, thrown like this, like concerts, like, like, dude, I've been at a Riot Fest, which is like a major concert that has felt like this, where it's like, they didn't plan this very well, there's not enough things here, it seems danger. And the fine line between, "Man, we just pulled off this crazy party," and nine people died, is, it's razor thin, you know? It is, there is some times where it's like, "This is the coolest party I've ever been to," and then, and it doesn't go completely wrong, but it could have at any time. One of those house parties, we had, we had 200 people and they're raging in the living room, and I thought for, I started standing closer to the wall,

• 55:58Speaker 04

  because I was like, "This floor's gonna give out, man, there's no way."

• 56:01Robert Evans?

  This could end badly.

• 56:02Speaker 04

  This house could not be designed to have this many people jumping up and down like this, you know?

• 56:07Robert Evans?

  And, you know, I, a lot of being happy, especially like, being happy about how you spent your twenties, is getting as close to that line as you can get without crossing over into the killing nine people at City College?

• 56:21Speaker 04

  Absolutely, yeah, yeah, risking it. Yeah, I've been on the edge.

• 56:24Robert Evans?

  Yeah, the edge is a place, uh, but it's also a place that's called the edge for a reason, because sometimes nine people fall off a bit, yeah, yeah.

• 56:31Speaker 04

  It's a place where legends are made, Robert, you just, you know, hey, man, you know, sometimes you gotta get right up. Up to the edge and just living life, man.

• 56:39Robert Evans?

  Yep.

• 56:39Speaker 04

  L V I N.

• 56:40Robert Evans?

  Yep. Hunter Thompson wrote eloquently about the edge and also died unable to hold in his bowels. So, you know, that is the consequence.

• 56:49Speaker 04

  It's not a long life.

• 56:50Robert Evans?

  It's not a long life.

• 56:52Speaker 04

  Not a long life.

• 56:53Robert Evans?

  So, because this is America, getting a bunch of people killed due to your own staggering negligence does not mean that you don't have, yeah, none, none at all. And Puff Daddy proves immune to consequences for his actions, even though, again, every review of the disasters, like, he's, he's to blame for a lot of this. Now, again, I don't want to say all of it, because let's not forget the NYPD.

• 57:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course.

• 57:16Robert Evans?

  They also got those kids killed.

• 57:18Speaker 04

  Look, there's never a time where the NYPD hasn't been a little bit negligent in some people dying in New York City. It's like, you know, it's what they do best.

• 57:25Robert Evans?

  Mm-hmm. That's part of their, that's what they get paid for, of course. Yeah. Um, the NYPD operates one of the largest surveillance apparatuses on the planet so that they can know more places to get kids killed. Um, so, uh, Puff Daddy winds up testifying in court about the disaster when the families of the dead and the survivors sued the college. After a 1998 court appearance, he told reporters-

• 57:47Speaker 04

  Oh, so they didn't go after him at all? They just went for the college?

• 57:49Robert Evans?

  No, no, go after the college. I think at this point, the college is who has money. He's not rich.

• 57:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a kid. Yeah. Yeah, good point. Yeah, no reason to go after him. He's got nothing.

• 57:58Robert Evans?

  Yeah, what's he gonna do for you? After a 1998 court appearance, he told reporters that, like, "I think about it every day. I think about, you know, the dead every single day. You know, I'm, I'm always, my thoughts are always with them." Quote, "But the things that I deal with can in no way measure up to the pain that the families deal with. I just pray for the families and pray for the children who lost their lives every day."

• 58:18Speaker 04

  So he literally wrote, "I'll be missing you," like-

• 58:20Robert Evans?

  I'll be missing you about the people he got crushed to death?

• 58:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. Like, right all the, every day, man. Every time I pray, man, I'll be missing you. Yeah.

• 58:30Robert Evans?

  He hit him early with that. He did, he did. Right away. It's a thing that always works for him.

• 58:37Speaker 04

  Get the hits, man. Play the hits.

• 58:39Robert Evans?

  I can't wait till we have our first dictator who takes a no data, who like fucking like uses chemical weapons on a crowd of protesters and is then gets in like a studio and sings "I'll Be Missing You."

• 58:57Robert Evans?

  Pro tip for the future dictators who listen to this podcast. There's gotta be one of you.

• 59:03Speaker 04

  Have a banger ready to go.

• 59:05Robert Evans?

  Have a banger ready to go. And look, if you do succeed in becoming a dictator, just give me a province. Just one province is all I ask for.

• 59:12Speaker 04

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 59:13Robert Evans?

  I mean, let me, you know, I'll make a golden house for my, of course, I'm gonna make a golden house, you know, but like it'll be, it'll be gold plated. I'm not that much of a crook. As one does. You can bring your Grammy over to my gold plated house, Will.

• 59:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, man. Take shots out of it.

• 59:26Robert Evans?

  Hell, yeah.

• 59:29Robert Evans?

  Now, speaking of "I'll Be Missing You," I'm gonna be missing you all because this is the end of part one, but don't worry, folks. We have a lot more coming. This is, this, this whole week is gonna be Diddy Week here at Behind the Bastards.

• 59:40Speaker 04

  Ah, Diddy Week.

• 59:43Robert Evans?

  Will, my friend, you have a TikTok to plug.

• 59:47Speaker 04

  I have a TikTok. I am Greasy Will Music. I have a podcast. It's called That Sounds About Right. I have a Instagram that you can find me. Greasy, I'm Greasy Will, G R E A Z Y W I L. One L because the second one wasn't pulling any heavyweight and I decided I was wasting time doing it.

• 1:00:04Robert Evans?

  Fuck that L, yeah.

• 1:00:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, fuck that L. But I am highly Google-able. I am all over the internet. I can be found almost anywhere. You could even send a telegram to me still. I, I accept telegrams as long as they are Western Union and contain money as well.

• 1:00:20Robert Evans?

  Yes. Yeah, yeah. I send you telegrams, but entirely about our oil business down in, in the Arizona Territory.

• 1:00:28Speaker 04

  I drank your milkshake.

• 1:00:31Robert Evans?

  That's right. That's right. That's how you and I spend our, our free time. Be an old timey oilman. It's a great time, everybody. Well, until next week, folks. Become an old timey oilman yourself, you know? Start a, start an oil rig somewhere.

• 1:00:48Speaker 05

  Next week, next part.

• 1:00:50Robert Evans?

  Next part, yeah. Next part. Not, not next week. We'll be back tomorrow, probably. Anyway.

• 1:00:55Speaker 04

  Minutes from now. Just hold your breath.

• 1:00:57Robert Evans?

  We're gonna keep recording, yes. Anyway, I love you all. Go to hell.

• 1:01:06Speaker 05

  Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel, youtube.com/behindthebastards.

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  Games on a break? Don't doom scroll. Try rips on Underdog. Buy a digital pack, rip it open, and reveal a real, physical card. Football, basketball, even Pokemon. Packs start at just $5. Ship it straight to your door, or sell it back instantly at full market value. Max value up to $125,000. Download Underdog and get in on the chase. Deposit $5, get five free packs. Real rips, real cards, real cash. Only on Underdog. Unleash your dog. 18+, terms apply. Top grails are extremely rare.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.