Sean “Diddy” Combs’ longtime rival, Suge Knight, has urged the disgraced music mogul to take the stand at his federal sex-trafficking trial — claiming he “really would walk” free if he just got up there and humanized himself.
Knight, who is currently serving time in California for manslaughter, spoke out in his arch nemesis’ defense amid his ongoing high-profile trial in Manhattan, saying he believes jurors will eventually find the Bad Boy Records founder not guilty.
“I feel if he do tell his truth, he really would walk,” the former Death Row Records producer told CNN Thursday in a phone interview from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
“If Puffy goes up there and says, ‘Hey … I did all the drugs, I wasn’t in control of my life at the time, or myself’ – he can humanize his old self and the jury might give him a shot.”
“But if they keep him sitting down, it’s like he’s scared to face the music,” he continued. “He should just have his faith in God, put up his pants and go up there and tell his truth.”
It isn’t yet clear if Combs, who has pleaded not guilty, plans to testify in his own defense.
The 55-year-old is accused of using his fame, fortune and businesses to run a sex-trafficking and racketeering scheme in which he controlled and manipulated then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, 38, for over a decade — using violence and threats, and forcing her and others into drug-fueled “freak-off” sex marathons that went on for days.
Knight, whose name has been mentioned multiple times in bombshell testimony, admitted in an interview with Piers Morgan Uncensored that his rival did “weird stuff” but that it didn’t mean he was guilty of the crimes.
“He’s guilty for being a cold, freaky man that wants freaky things done to him,” Knight said.
“In the Cassie situation, they could not say he was having sex with the man also, because that’ll make him like [it was an] orgy. It won’t be like sex-trafficking. It won’t be like forcing stuff to do,” he continued.
“But at the end of the day, there’s no way Puffy should go to prison for the rest of his life.”
Knight, for his part, is serving a 28-year prison sentence for killing 55-year-old Terry Carter when he ran over him with his pickup truck in the parking lot of a burger joint in 2015.
He agreed to pay a $1.5 million settlement to the victim’s family at a court hearing in Los Angeles last month.
Meanwhile, Knight and Combs’ rivalry started way back in the 1990s when Knight was a producer for major California rappers such as Tupac Shakur and Combs was working with The Notorious B.I.G.
Knight’s Death Row Records and Combs’ Bad Boy Records label were at the center of the East-West Coast rap feud, which culminated in the violent deaths of Shakur and Wallace within a matter of months of each other in 1996 and 1997.
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