Diddy’s former bodyguard claims the story surrounding Biggie Smalls’ death was a flat-out lie.
While speaking to the Art of Dialogue, Gene Deal was pressed about his involvement in one of music’s most notorious unsolved murders. Deal, who worked as Diddy’s security in the 1990s, insisted Biggie wasn’t killed in a drive-by, as many were made to believe. How does he claim to know? Because he witnessed the attack with his own eyes.
“Before we left Andre Harrell’s house, Puff told me I didn’t have to go,” Deal said. “Now, I went because I knew that somebody was going to die that night, somebody was going to get shot. I did everything in my power to stop it from being Puff, and it wasn’t Puff … The people that was bodyguarding Big didn’t do everything in their power to stop it from being Big — and that hurts me, even though it wasn’t my principle.”
Biggie was gunned down in the early hours of March 9, 1997, after he left a Soul Train Awards afterparty. At around 12:45 a.m. a Chevy Impala reportedly pulled up next to Biggie’s SUV and opened fire. The rapper was allegedly shot four times and was pronounced dead shortly after.
Deal said he rushed to Biggie’s aid after the shooting and pulled him from the vehicle as watched “this kid lose his life.”
“I wouldn’t put nobody in my shoes ’cause I don’t feel like they could handle it,” he said. “If I didn’t have God in my life, if I didn’t have people praying for me, I don’t know if I could have handled it.”
Deal said it’s difficult for him to watch reenactments of Biggie’s death in movies and TV shows, as the murder is inaccurately portrayed as a drive-by.
“It just hurts because they lie too much,” he continued. “A lot of that shit be lies the way they put it together ’cause they listening to these white boys who wasn’t even there. I don’t want to make this racial, but they take these white boys who wasn’t even there and want to use the stories that they want to tell, which is not the truth. Wasn’t no drive-by. The car was standing there at the corner. The stories they tell is not truthful. And now people are sitting here believing.”
You can hear Deal’s full comments in the video above.