Diddy made another questionable move on June 21. The disgraced music mogul deleted all the posts from his Instagram, including his apology video to Cassie. The decision sparked lots of speculation, with some positing that it may be a tactic to avoid further legal troubles. Others interpreted Diddy’s decision as him taking back his apology to Cassie. The backlash grew so quickly that a representative for Diddy issued a statement clarifying that Diddy stands by his apology. This statement wasn’t good enough for Stephen A Smith, however.
The sports analyst took Diddy’s decision and ran with it during the June 25 episode of his podcast. He took Diddy to task for wiping his IG feed and refusing to leave the apology video up, in particular. “If you had a million photos,” Stephen A Smith stated. “And you decided to delete 999,999 of them, that’s the one you should’ve kept up. If you’re sincere. You got 20 million followers on Instagram.” Smith made it clear that he was baffled by Diddy’s decision, given how it’s been interpreted. “Why did you delete that video of the apology,” he asked. “Don’t you want people to know that you were contrite.”
Stephen A Smith Is Baffled By Diddy’s PR Decision
The rant continues from there. Stephen A Smith laid out the different ways in which deleting the video makes Diddy look worse. “By deleting the video,” he asserted. “You throw all of that out the window. The possibility of the very few people who would ever believe that.” SAS then turned his focus towards the Diddy PR team. “Who are your PR people,” he yelled. “Who are these people? Where is the advice?” He then proceeded to give his advice as to how the Bad Boy founder should have handled the situation.
Unsurprisingly, Smith would have told the mogul to leave the apology video up. “I’d have said never delete your account and never delete that video,” he explained. “Leave that up forever. Because that was you apologizing. And owning up to your transgression. You deleting it from your account… that wasn’t smart.” The final dagger Stephen A Smith delivered was aimed squarely at Diddy. “It comes across,” he opined. “As you wanting to erase everything as opposed to you wanting to be accountable for everything.”
About The Author
Danilo is a writer based out of San Diego. He graduated from the Art Institute of Tucson with a B.A. in digital media, and has since forged a career as a pop culture journalist. He covered hip-hop for Heavy.com, Rhyme Junkies and PopMatters prior to joining HotNewHipHop.com. Danilo’s top five is constantly changing, but Biggie and Slug from Atmosphere remain permanent fixtures. His favorite rap album of all time is “Late Registration” by Kanye West, and that stays the same.
