Whether Sean Combs’ bank account is listed under the name “Puff Daddy,” “Diddy,” “P. Diddy,” or just “Sean Combs,” Sting probably doesn’t care; all he wants is his regular cheque in the mail from that account.
That’s because the now-53-year-old rapper and record producer has been paying the 71-year-old former Police frontman thousands of dollars per day for years since he sampled the band’s ’80s hit “Every Breath You Take” in his 1997 song “I’ll Be Missing You.”
Without getting the necessary permissions, Combs sampled the Grammy-winning Police song in his ode to the Notorious BIG, who had passed away earlier that year. Sting ended up suing Combs for copyright infringement and receiving the rights to all royalties from Combs’ song, which also won a Grammy, according to the Los Angeles Times.
When one of the hosts of The Breakfast Club questioned Sting if it was true that Combs gives him $2,000 every day in 2018, Sting responded in the positive. As reported by Hello! at the time, Sting remarked, “I put a couple of my kids through college with the proceeds.”
However, that video has just lately started to circulate online once more, leading Combs to gently correct himself. “Nope. 5K per day,” he tweeted on Wednesday.
Using that updated amount, Hello! estimates that Diddy would have paid out close to $48 million since the May 7, 1997, release of the song “I’ll Be Missing You,” which he co-wrote with Biggie’s widow, Faith Evans. Despite the relatively substantial amount of money that is transferred between the two guys, there doesn’t seem to be any animosity toward the arrangement. According to Consequence,
Sting described Combs’ song as “a beautiful version” in the 2018 interview and declared that the two were “very good friends now.” Combs, for his part, added: “Love to my brother @OfficialSting!” in a tweet from this week.
