Rapper rips CNN for asking him about Diddy, drinks sex stimulant on the air in wild interview
Rapper Cam'ron slugged down a pre-sex supplement drink and wondered aloud why he'd even been booked during a bizarre CNN interview on Monday about the abuse allegations against Sean "Diddy" Combs.
"Is there something known in the industry about how Diddy treated his artists?" CNN's Abby Phillip asked Cam'ron as the artist drank a libido supplement reportedly called "Pink Horse Power," which he hocks on his podcast.
"Sorry, I'm going to go get some cheeks after this Horse Power drink," he said after finishing the drink and displaying the logo for the camera; "cheeks" is a crude reference to sex.
The drink that Cam'ron consumed is "designed to empower man's sexual intimacy by helping to improve stamina and libido," according to the product's website. He added he didn't know Diddy as well as his podcast partner, fellow 1990s rapper Ma$e.
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Cam'ron was questioned by Phillip, who looked increasingly uncomfortable as the interview went on, about the controversy around Diddy after video was released of him beating his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel in 2016. At one point, Cam'ron grew frustrated with her questions and wondered what he was even doing on the program.
"Did you recognize that kind of anger at all, from your experiences?" Phillip asked Cam'ron.
"I don't know him like that. What do you mean, did I recognize him? I saw him. What do you mean by ‘experiences?’ I saw him and I thought it was disgusting. I didn’t do a zoom-in to see if it was really him or not. But he admitted it was him, so, yeah, it was him," he said.
"Who’s the talent agent for this joint?" Diddy later asked. "You think I be sitting around watching what Diddy doing? I didn’t know this was a Diddy joint that y’all invited me to. Who booked me for this joint?"
Phillip ended the interview there.
Cam'ron hosts the popular podcast "It is What It is" with Ma$e. The duo famously used O.J. Simpson as their sports correspondent for their podcast until his death earlier this year.
Diddy, a music mogul and record producer, apologized after the video of the assault emerged, saying he's "disgusted" with himself in a video that he released to social media.
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"It's so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life. Sometimes you got to do that. I was f---ed up. I mean I hit rock bottom. But I make no excuses. My behavior on that video is inexcusable," he said in a self-recorded message beneath a rattan roof posted to Instagram.
Cam'ron said that he was "upset" by everything he saw in the video of Diddy.
"Everything in the video is egregious," he said. " I don’t support any of that trafficking, minors, domestic violence. I’m totally against it."
‘[H]e’s not necessarily a friend," Cam’ron said of his relationship with Diddy, "but yeah, I was upset when I saw it."
But when asked to elaborate about Diddy's reputation and behavior, Cam'ron became more evasive.
Cam’ron emerged on the New York City rap scene in the late 1990s and his stardom reached new levels in the early 2000s when he signed with Jay Z’s Roc-A-Fella records. He was also co-founder of Diplomat Records and starred in the 2002 film "Paid in Full."