Diddy has been in the hot seat over the past few months as more and more allegations against him continue to surface, and a few of his former employees have now added to the growing list.
In a new report published by The Daily Beast on Saturday (June 1), five people who previously worked under the mogul detailed their experiences soon after footage of him assaulting Cassie went viral last month. In order to tell their stories comfortably, each person requested anonymity.
“He didn’t like that I wasn’t agreeing with him, and he wasn’t interested in hearing my point of view,” a former Sean John employee said about the consequences of challenging her boss. “He puts one hand on both sides of my cheeks and says ‘Stick out your tongue,’ and then he squeezes my face harder and yells at me to stick out my tongue, forces his hands on my face.”
This command, she claims, was because he “wanted to see” if her tongue was bleeding since she had been biting it.
“There was erratic behavior, there was definitely what I would consider mental abuse, [with] how he spoke to us as employees,” another person shared, claiming he was fired for making eye contact with Puff after the latter showed up late for work. Expanding on the alleged “culture of fear” that had him working from 7 am. to 11 pm., he added that there was “a lot of profanity, kind of aggressive, in your face — physically in your face — kind of stuff.”
“When people ask me about it, I always tell them it was the worst experience I ever had in my life,” he continued. “He felt as though he should never be questioned and what he says is what it is.”
A third employee recalled the short period of time the average worker would stay at Diddy’s companies, calling attention to the phrase “catching a brick.”
“It was as if you’re walking down the street and someone randomly threw a brick at your head out of the blue,” they said. “Out of the blue, if he was unhappy with something that you might not have done but he thought you did, you ‘caught a brick.’”
As for their own experience with said behavior, they remembered being verbally attacked by the Bad Boy boss: “I was surrounded by security guards, [who] rushed over — while he’s six inches from my face, screaming at me, telling me I fucked up.”
Similar to those who worked at Sean John, a former Blue Flame employee opened up about enduring torment of the same kind.
“There was a lot of cursing, a lot of talking to people crazy, a lot of [calling women] bitches, [saying], ‘Fuck you,’ or ‘Stupid,’” or “‘I’ll fire y’all bitches right now,’” she said.
“Everyone was kind of cautioned that, ‘Oh, he might say something weird or something off,’ but were told they should ‘just turn the other way.’ His assistants and representatives would be like, ‘We just keep it moving.’ He has so many assistants, I can’t remember who they all were.”
Contrary to the above allegations, some people also went easy on the 54-year-old.
“I don’t think he was exceptionally crazy,” an ex-employee shared. “It was intense work, the hours were not normal […] He could be intimidating and scary and mean, but there was always this underlying professionalism to him.”
Likewise, another added: “He lives up to everything […] You learn to understand what you are dealing with.”
