In an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden for “Carpool Karaoke,” Sean “Diddy” Combs revealed there are only two people who call him by his real name.
After a performance of “Bad Boy for Life,” Corden said he didn’t know how to refer to the rapper and Bad Boy Records founder.
“You can call me any of the approved names,” he said. “I was born Puffy, and then I became P Diddy, then they called me Diddy because I was so pretty. Then Puff Daddy, and then I became who I am now, which is Love.”
Corden pointed out that his real name, Sean Combs, was notably absent from that list. “Sean is typically used by my mother, or… I don’t know, like when you’re in trouble or something,” he said. “So that’s not on the approved list.”
Diddy was asked who is “Sean approved,” and said there’s a single person aside from his mother. “There’s only one person, and I call him Shawn,” he replied. “And that’s Jay-Z. We call each other [Sean/Shawn]. Nobody else could call me Sean.”
As pointed out by Corden, the different names Diddy has gone by represent specific eras of his career. Corden’s hosting duties on The Late Late Show are coming to an end soon, so he asked if he should go by a new name. Diddy inquired what he was looking for, and he added, “Oh my god. Your nickname should be…the same as mine. You should be Love, too. … I’m Love, and I’m letting you share my name too, because I’m in the same frequency. We’re both Love.”
They also performed Diddy’s self-titled song with the Neptunes, “I’ll Be Missing You,” “I Need a Girl (Part 2),” and Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” As for why he chose to close out the Carpool Karaoke segment with Sinatra, the 53-year-old laughed, “That song does something to me.”