Sean “Diddy” Combs clarified that he was “joking” when he said he pays Sting “5K a day” in royalties.
“I want you to know I was joking!” the Bad Boy Records founder, 53, tweeted on Friday after multiple outlets reported on the hefty royalty payments. “It’s known as being Facetious!” [Sting] and I have been friends for a long time!”
Diddy claimed that the rocker “never charged me $3K or $5K a day” for “I’ll Be Missing You,” his 1997 hit tribute song to the late Biggie Smalls, which heavily sampled The Police’s 1983 track “Every Breath You Take.”
“He probably makes more than $5,000 a day from one of history’s biggest songs,” Diddy concluded.
The music mogul sparked outrage on Twitter on Wednesday by retweeting a 2018 interview on Power 105.1 FM’s “The Breakfast Club,” in which Sting — born Gordon Sumner — confirmed that Diddy was paying him $2,000 per day “for the rest of his life” for sampling the song.
“5K a day. “Love to my brother [Sting],” Diddy tweeted.
During the show, host Charlamagne tha God asked Sting, 71, if Diddy had asked for “permission” to use the song, which the “Desert Rose” musician confirmed.
However, the “Roxanne” singer, who said he and Diddy are now “very good friends,” went on to say that Diddy only asked for permission after the song went viral.
As previously reported by The Washington Post, if the now-debunked deal had been in place in 1997, the “Last Night” emcee would have paid Sting approximately $47.4 million dollars for the sampling to date.
Diddy’s chart-topping single was released two months after the Notorious B.I.G. was assassinated on March 9, 1997. He was 24 years old at the time.
