Sean “Diddy” Combs hasn’t allowed the reins of the low-security federal prison FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey to stop his costly lifestyle. A NBC News journalistic investigation based on testimonies from former cell companions reveals that the music magnate is spending thousands of dollars a month to replicate the amenities he was used to in freedom.
According to the sources consulted, Combs has a “sequito” of detainees who pay them to do their daily tasks: they cook custom dishes like curry chicken or empanadas using improvised heaters, clean their bathrooms and shower before they use them, and even give them massages. “This is not the normal life you see in prison. This is rich people’s thing,” said an ex-exclusionist.
Privileges are not limited to domestic service. Testimonials indicate that the rapper drinks Hennessy Cognac from smuggling on weekends with the complicity of some guards. He also owns an unauthorized cell phone with which he checks Instagram and receives intimate photographs of his partner, as well as acquiring drugs like Remeron on the black market. To entertain himself, he uses a “released” tablet from which he would have followed the documentary series about his own case on Netflix.
Combs is sentenced to 50 months in prison after being found guilty of transporting people for prostitution purposes, a ruling issued after charges linked to his famous private parties. Although in July he was transferred to solitary confinement due to a fight — which resulted in his expulsion from a rehabilitation program — the sources say that, by returning to the general population, the artist immediately resumed his ostentative daily routine.
In the face of the revelations, the musician’s legal team stressed the facts, saying the media insisted on turning “worldly details” into news. For its part, the Federal Prison Office has merely pointed out that cell phone and drug smuggling continues to be a recurring challenge in prison centres. However, for the prisoners who shared flag with him, the situation inside Fort Dix is summed up in a simple maxim: “Money is power, especially behind the reels.”
