The fallout from Sean “Diddy” Combs‘ federal trial is being felt far beyond courtrooms, especially in Miami, where the music mogul has long been a prominent figure.
At Hot 105 radio, DJ Alex “Big Lip” Chisolm says listeners and artists alike are distancing themselves, many for good.
“You cannot get that image outside of your head”
Chisolm, a fixture on South Florida airwaves, doesn’t believe Combs can recover from the public’s reaction to video evidence of him assaulting singer Cassie Ventura.
“I don’t think so, not at all,” he said, when asked whether Diddy could return to the music industry. “I think he’ll still continue to get his royalties from his music, but you don’t understand how hard it is to come back from all that.”
He emphasized that while many celebrities face allegations, the video made this case different.
“People go through all these allegations and stuff all the time, you know, a lot of entertainers go through sexual assault allegations, sexual misconduct allegations. Very seldomly is there video footage behind it,” Chisolm said. “You know that video of him hitting Cassie.”
“I don’t care who you are; you cannot get that image outside of your head and then go and support that person.”
Listeners and artists pull away
Chisolm and fellow DJ Shelby Rushin came in on their day off to open the phone lines and hear from listeners. The calls, he said, reflected a wide range of views, but many echoed a sense of betrayal and loss.
“Well, first of all, it affects our community so much. You have to think like Diddy is like, you know, I’m a kid that grew up in the 90s and he plays so much a part of our music culture,” Chisolm said.
According to him, even Diddy’s Miami celebrity circle has gone silent.
“You have artists from Miami; they were on Instagram where they were hanging out with him… that was their right-hand man, you know, ‘let’s hang with Diddy, let’s party with Diddy.’ None of that happened; they disappeared. Everybody disappeared… they totally disconnected themselves from Diddy 100%.”
