Sean 'Diddy' Combs' "heart is broken forever".
The 53-year-old music mogul's on/off partner Kim Porter - the mother of three of his children, who he dated for 13 years until 2007 - passed away in 2018 aged just 47 from pneumonia, and the hip-hop mogul admitted he will always be affected by losing both her and his first mentor Andre Harrell, who died in 2020.
He reflected to The Sunday Times' Culture magazine: “I can only make a hit when my heart is broken. And, now, my heart is broken for ever..
“There are losses that change the trajectory of your life. And I let life get to me. It was rough losing the mother of my children and my father figure. They were the stable parts of my life. I may be Diddy, but I’m just a human, and a big baby sometimes. I locked myself in the bathroom. I had to pull myself up.”
Diddy - who has four other children from previous relationships - became a household name with his 1997 single 'I'll Be Missing You', a tribute to his late friend and protege Notorious BIG, who was shot dead earlier that year, and he credits the song for saving his life because he was ready to "give up".
He said: “Music saved my life when I made that song, I was on the floor crying and wanting to give up. I didn’t want to do this any more. It was too much.”
Because of his losses, Diddy - whose drug dealer father Melvin was shot dead when the rapper was just two years old - thinks people see him as a "tragic hero".
He said: “In my life, man, it feels like I’m a tragic hero.
“That’s what people knew me for: overcoming tragic obstacles. It’s how I got introduced to the world.
"'I’ll Be Missing You' is something everybody can relate to. It is a vulnerable song and British people love some motherf****** honesty.”
Tagged in Sean Combs Kim Porter Notorious BIG