As you probably know by now, Sean “Diddy” Combs is in a world of trouble.
The rapper and media mogul is currently under investigation by law enforcement after April raids were conducted on his mansions on both the East and West Coasts, reportedly looking for evidence of sex trafficking. Then, on Sunday, Combs was forced into apologizing after video of him brutally beating former girlfriend Cassie Ventura surfaced.
To deal with the fallout, what CNN needed were legal analysts, domestic abuse and sex trafficking specialists, and those with access to Diddy’s inner circle. Who they had on instead Monday night was a rapper — and not only that, but a rapper with the most tenuous of links to Diddy. He proceeded to turn the entire thing into a reprehensible farce, including downing a sexual stimulant on air because, he claimed in somewhat more vulgar terms, he was going to enjoy the act of romantic congress after the interview.
Cameron Giles, better known by the stage name Cam’ron, first seemed to take the segment with CNN’s Abby Phillip seriously, despite appearing in shades and a black bucket hat from Las Vegas. (Even still, that attire is so seldom a good sign.)
“What I want to say, first of all, when I seen the video, everything in the video is egregious, I’m against,” he said. “I don’t support all the charges that’s alleged against him. I don’t support any of that trafficking, minors, domestic violence. I’m totally against it. So, when I seen the video, yeah, I was kind of upset with it. Being that I know him, he’s not necessarily a friend, but yeah, I was upset when I seen it.”
Phillip then continued to pry, asking Giles — despite the fact he’d already explained he wasn’t close friends with Diddy — if he could “recognize that kind of anger at all, from your experiences?”
“I don’t know him like that. What do you mean, do I be recognize him?” shot back a somewhat incredulous Giles. “I seen him. What do you mean, my experiences? I seen him, and I thought it was disgusting. I didn’t do a zoom in to see if it was really him or nothing — but he admitted it was him, so yeah, it was him.”
OK, then — what about his apology? “The apology ain’t for me to decide. It’s for Cassie,” Giles said. “What I think about it don’t matter. It ain’t do nothing to me. Cassie — need to ask Cassie if she accept the apology. I told you how I feel. I said what I said.”
Phillip then played the rapper a clip in which the rapper Mase, a high-school friend of Cam’ron’s and a former signatory to Diddy’s Bad Boy Records, appeared on Cam’ron’s podcast. In it, the two talk about the fact that Cam’ron was introduced to the record industry by Mase through the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. and not through Bad Boy Records.
Should CNN have interviewed Cam’ron?
“Being that I saw you as such a good friend, I wanted to put you with somebody I knew,” Mase said on the podcast.
“Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I mean, is there something known in the industry about how Diddy treated his artists?” Phillip asked.
It was at this point that the interview started to go off the rails: Instead of getting emotional, Cam’ron pulled up a little bottle of pinkish liquid, unscrewed it, held it up for the camera and drank it, leading to several seconds of silence in the interview.
“Sorry, I’m going to get some cheeks after this horsepower drink,” Cam’ron said.
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
you cannot be serious pic.twitter.com/TDkGEW5aQW
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 21, 2024
For those who aren’t up with the vulgarisms of the times, “get some cheeks” means pretty much what you imagine it might from the context.
To make this worse, this was a vile product placement for a product called Pink HorsePower. According to the website, which describes the sexual stimulant as “Cam’ron’s bedroom love,” the “all natural supplement is designed to empower man’s sexual intimacy by helping to improve stamina and libido.”
After Mr. Giles finished the bottle, he had this explanation: “I’m just going over what Mase said — Mase took me to Biggie. I don’t really know Puffers like Mase know Puff. So I appreciate what Mase said, and of course, that’s my brother, so if he felt that way, then he felt that way. I can’t really tell you how Puff moves or anything like that. Mase may know better than me because he was signed to Puff.”
Yes, but apparently any rapper will do, at least at CNN. Phillip kept on probing deeper to ask — yet again — whether this was something known in the industry. Mr. ‘Ron was having none of it.
“Who the talent agent for this joint?” Cam’ron asked. “You think I’d be sitting around watching what Diddy do and all this? I didn’t know this was a Diddy joint y’all invited me to. Yo — who booked me for this joint? I don’t vilin’. I don’t be sittin’ around watching Diddy and all that.”
It was at this point that Phillip, roughly three and a half minutes too late, realized the interview was worth bailing on:
So Cam’ron went on CNN tonight and it was an absolute disaster pic.twitter.com/xm3tCe9O7N
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 21, 2024
This an appalling performance on a number of levels, but what could really be expected of Cam’ron?
The first album of his I remember was one called “S.D.E.” from 2000, where the title acronym stands for “Sports, Drugs & Entertainment”; in addition to the title track, that record also included songs with titles like “F*** You,” “F*** You At,” and “Come Kill Me.” I have not felt the need to pay attention to him in the intervening years. Given the fact that his last studio album only debuted at No. 180 on the Billboard 200 in 2019, it’s safe to say most of America feels the same way.
What, then, is CNN’s excuse? At a time when a legal analyst or an expert in domestic violence was sorely needed, they brought in a washed-up rapper who didn’t even really know Diddy and who used up cable news network time to hawk for his personal line of sexual stimulants. Nice work.
