Earlier this week, amid the scrum of reporters, vloggers and at least one ranting reveler that’s formed the media circus outside of the lower Manhattan federal courthouse at 500 Pearl Street stood a group of mostly Black men and women all donning the same black T-shirt with one of two phrases in support of Sean “Diddy” Combs emblazoned in white all caps: “Free Puff” and “Free $Diddy,” they read.
The “Free Puff” t-shirt was first spotted as jury selection began on May 5, donned by Charlucci Finney, Combs’ longtime best friend. Other than Finney, staunch supporters of Combs are scarce outside the downtown courthouse as his team of powerhouse attorneys is in week three battling the feds at the fallen rap mogul’s sex trafficking and racketeering trial. This pop-up display of support for the defendant made the group stick out in a crowd.
With the majority of reporters inside the courtroom hanging on every word of testimony and anticipating reprimand of counsel from Judge Arun Subramanian, journalist and podcaster Emilie Hagen, host of Emilie Knows Everything, drilled down on the sudden show of support to find out if this was some sort of paid protest, a show of support for the one-time chart-topping rapper or something else entirely.
According to Hagan’s reporting, it was a bit of all of the above. After speaking with some of the T-shirt-clad demonstrators, she learned that this may have been a paid protest or a paid display of support that may not have been born out of grassroots support for Combs. In a clip posted to TikTok, one woman tells Hagan that she was approached while looking on at the silent “Free $Diddy” gaggle and then, she said, was told by someone handing them out that she’d earn $20 per hour to wear a T-shirt for a few hours outside the courthouse as the trial was unfolding inside.
“He told me it’s for a ‘Diddy coin,’ so I’m not really sure what that is,” the woman told Hagan in the clip. “They just tried to pay me $20 to wear a ‘Free Puffy’ shirt. The lady right there just kept convincing me to wear the shirt, and I’m like, ‘I’m good.’”
The video caught fire online and was viewed by 50 Cent, Combs’ rap world rival, who never misses an opportunity to take a shot at his nemesis and try for some humor on his Instagram. “Diddy paying people to wear Free Diddy shirts is diabolical,” the rapper quipped in his caption on Instagram. “But $20 an hour ain’t bad. I might throw that on for an hour tomorrow.”
Humor aside, the suggestion that the T-shirt handout and alleged paid protest are affiliated with the $DIDDY coin does raise some ethical questions regarding Combs’ affiliation with the demonstration’s organizers. That’s because his namesake memecoin was created by his sons, Justin and King Combs, on May 8; the two have been running social media for the coin following the elder Combs’ September arrest.
The $DIDDY currency is a memecoin launched on the Solana blockchain and apparently primed to capitalize on the controversy surrounding Combs’ trial, as it began trading just days after jury selection began. Since its launch, it’s been promoted online by Combs and later by his friend and fellow rapper Kanye West, helping pump its price, at least temporarily. The live $DIDDY price on Tuesday was $0.00001613 with a 24-hour trading volume of $594.74.
“Fueled by memes, drama and raw internet energy, $DIDDY is the internet’s way of responding — with humor, with chaos and with collective creativity,” reads a statement on the coin’s webpage. “Welcome to the spectacle. Welcome to $DIDDY.”
The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Combs Global to ask if Combs has any involvement in the T-shirt handout and sought comment on the allegations of sponsored protests outside the court but did not immediately hear back.