Fact Check: Did Sting say Diddy pays him $2,000 a day for sampling Every Breath You Take? Viral interview explained as recent reel goes viral

The internet has recently gone crazy over Sting's claims that Diddy pays him $2,000 a day to sample Every Breath You Take. A recent reel on Instagram, which was based on a recently surfaced YouTube video from 6 years ago, said that-

“Is it true that Diddy has to pay you two grand a day because he didn't have permission to sample every breath you take? Yeah. For the rest of his life."

However, once the claim went viral, sources like Business Insider have debunked it. An April 2023 article in the media outlet said that even though I'll Be Missing You singer did say that he pays Sting $2,000 a day for sampling Every Breath You Take, he was joking. In fact, they both were.

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Diddy said he “never” paid Sting any amount of money for sampling the song

The recent viral claim is fake (Image via Getty)

A viral claim emerged stating that musician Sting once said that Combs pays him $2,000 a day for sampling a song, stemming from a 2018 interview with The Breakfast Club. In the interview, Sting (Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner) mentioned that the rapper promised to pay him for the rest of his life, without seeking permission to sample the song.

Once the interview surfaced on other social media platforms, content creators took that particular portion of the video and claimed the same.

The reel further claimed that-

“That's a $730 ,000 a year mistake. I'll Be Missing You is the song that Diddy sampled eight years ago. That means the grand total is up to $5 .9 million as of today…. Elton John was the one who discovered this and told Sting that he was gonna make millions of dollars off of Diddy.”

The 'Bad Boy' jokingly made the claim (Image via X / @Diddy)

Meanwhile, the Last Night singer retweeted the clip of the interview on April 5, 2023, saying that the deal was $5,000 a day. However, after several media outlets started reporting the same, the rapper again took to X on April 7 and clarified that it was a joke.

The rapper said he was joking (Image via X / @Diddy)

“I want y’all to understand I was joking!.... He never charged me $3K or $5K a day for Missing You. He probably makes more than $5K a day...” he wrote.

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What were the allegations against Diddy?

Rapper and music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs has been the target of numerous legal cases including alleged r*pe, s*xual abuse, and s*x trafficking.

On May 17, surveillance footage from a hotel in Los Angeles from March 2016 surfaced on the internet. It shows the It's All About The Benjamins singer attacking Cassie Ventura, his then-girlfriend, down the hallway before assaulting her near the elevators. Then he attempted to pull her toward his hotel room.

Following the video and heavy criticism, he uploaded an apologetic video on Instagram the next day, calling his acts "inexcusable" and claiming to have taken "full responsibility for his actions in the video."

However, for some reason, he removed the video from Instagram and cleaned up his account. He also decided to remove every image and video from his Instagram account during the week of June 16 without a prior press release or announcement. The reason behind this action is still unknown.

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Meanwhile, Combs has refuted these accusations made against him. On the other hand, federal authorities have not yet filed official charges against or made any accusations as of yet.