diddy & me
There are some invitations a girl can’t turn down.
It’s October 22nd, 2008. My roommate invites me to be her plus one to Diddy’s private party in celebration of, well, himself, but specifically, his L’Uomo Vogue cover, shot by her employer, Mark Seliger, a celebrity and fashion photographer of note, I danced like Grandpa Joe when Charlie presents him with the Golden Ticket to the Wonka Factory.
Diddy, née Puff Daddy, née Sean Combs, is famous for being famous, and, perhaps, for making others famous by association. “He’s a MUSICIAN,” you protest? Of course, he has won Grammy Awards, but so did Milli Vanilli and the Starlight Vocal Band. I can hum only two of his songs, and only because they rely heavily on samples from The Police and Led Zeppelin. He’s a celebrity’s celebrity, a Bon Vivant, a man most famous for throwing parties. Perhaps the event would be so overcrowded that people would be faint in the crush to get in and/or out. Perhaps there would be gunplay. Perhaps Diddy’s mere presence would magically transform me into Special K from Breakin’ while we improvise a Krump routine that would inspire onlookers to exclaim, “Damn, that white girl can DANCE!” I hoped for the worst and expected the best.
I had one dilemma. What does one wear to a Diddy Party? Were this his famous annual White Party, I would have a clear direction, at least.
Mike Meyers, at the height of his Austin Powers fame, was refused entry to Puff Daddy’s Post VMA celebration because he did not adhere to the dress code. The invitation demanded that those invited “Dress to Impress.” Clearly, he did not. With the help of my roommate, I decided upon a gold knit dress, gold suede heels and a belt with a tasteful but prominent gold Gucci logo buckle. I felt confident and, yet, slightly ridiculous…exactly how I would describe Diddy, so off we went.
In the spirit of the occasion, we forwent the subway and opted for a car. The line outside 1OAK extended around the corner. It occurred to me at that moment that I was where millions of Americans would humiliate themselves on national television to be, and all I’d done to gain entry into the spectacle was answer a posting in the housing wanted section of craigslist 2 years ago. Alas, fortune smiles.
Once inside, we hurried to the bar to get our drank on. We were presented with a complimentary cocktail made with Ciroc Vodka, Diddy’s proprietary brand. We leaned, consciously “casually”, on the bar and surveyed the scene. It was soon evident just how exclusive this party was. There were fewer than a hundred people within the Diddy plastered walls. Of the chosen few, only three were caucasians. Myself, my roommate and a middle-aged man sporting an Obama hat.
Though the music was loud and, unsurprisingly, syncopative, the last thing I was going to do, in the absence of Diddy’s fairy dust, was dance, but why was the floor empty? No one was demonstrating their prowess…or talking. They huddled in groups, looking beyond each other with forced smiles or bored runway glares. The beautiful people were as self conscious as I was…more so, I guess, considering how much cost and care they’d invested in their costumes.
The lighting changed. The bass got stronger. The air grew electric. He appeared. Diddy. In the flesh. Immediately, the crowd became thicker, as though a very powerful magnet had been laid in a pan of metal shavings. He wore sunglasses at night and his arm in a sling, though I noted it’s absence in images from the red carpet posted online the following day. This baffled me. Diddy pays someone to carry his umbrella. How could he have hurt himself? Surely, had he fallen, his mammoth bodyguard would have cushioned his fall. He worked his way through the crowd pointing and shaking with his right hand. It was his left that was slung. This struck me as even more odd. Is he left handed? Could it be an acute case of Blackberry Thumb?
My roommate, a recent transplant from Vancouver, was awe struck. I was always told that it’s rude to stare, but she tuned into a simple truth. He wants to be stared at. That’s what he does. When people stop looking, he disappears. Moments later, an audible gasp echoed through the hall. Beyonce and Jay-Z had arrived. The room felt tighter as I was crushed toward her, forced to take her in. She smelled like white floral cash money. She wore the “it” shoes of the season, Dior’s purple snakeskin, chunky chrome heel. Her hiney was as round and succulent in person as it is on camera.
Their transition from appearance to disappearance was seamless, whisked to some dark corner of the building. Perhaps a room behind a mirror where they could observe the hoi polloi having less fun them, or, more likely, back to their waiting vehicle and off to their penthouse in the sky to enjoy athletic marital sex, the likes of which mere mortals may only imagine.
Alas, Diddy remained. As the DJ spun his new single, which relied heavily on the Clash’s “Straight to Hell”, recently sampled in M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” he wandered around prominently, a hospitable host, a consummate politician, smiling warmly and making folks feel welcome. In fact, I was the only person he didn’t speak to. Every time he entered “my zone,” a 3 foot radius of void that encases me like a bubble, I looked nervously at the floor, afraid he would expose my fraud, not “down” enough to be in his presence, not rich or fabulous enough to fan him with a palm. My roommate, however, made a point of approaching him and thanking him on our behalf for having us as his guests. She explained that I was shy, which, I guess, I am, but I was, also, disinterested in making small talk with someone so completely unrelatable to my narrow neurodivergent field of interest.
He smiled, thanked her and told her to enjoy herself. As she returned to me, he approached the DJ. She was excitedly recounting their completely generic exchange when I heard a familiar song. It was a melody from my not so distant youth by the Puff Daddy produced New Jack Swing quartet Jodeci.
Come and talk to me.
I really want to meet you.
Can I talk to you?
I really want to know you.
He was facing me, vibing with one arm. I immediately inspected the floor.
When that track faded out, he took the mic to introduce his gorgeous young protege, a neon yellow clad goddess named Cassie. She lip-synced to “ Official Girl,” her collaboration with the unfortunately absent Li’l Wayne. Diddy lip synced Wayne’s verse, and the party continued. Alas, it was a Tuesday night. My roomie and I were, apparently, the only people who had jobs to fulfill Wednesday morning. As I collected my things, King Combs shouted an invitation with a period at the end, “You coming to the afterparty.” “Thank you, but I’ve gotta work in the morning.” “You don’t gotta work ever again,” he replied, flatly deadpan. Tempting, but I abstained with a smile and dismissive wave. “No, but thank you, though.” I liked my job, and hard work, in general.
16 years later, I’m acutely aware of the odds I escaped. The stakes were far higher than I could have ever imagined then. In retrospect, I understand why I received the invitation. There was no shortage of available women present who were objectively more attractive than me, and decidedly more eager to engage in the protocols of that brand of fame, but I was the most vulnerable…the most awkward. I was a perfect victim, on the surface. If it had been a Saturday night, I may have joined the entourage. I may have sipped a drink and woke up with no memory of the the events that had bruised my body. Thank god it was a weeknight. There are some invitations a girl can’t turn down…and there are others she must.
