Ever the thoughtful host, rapper and music mogul Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs stepped onto the balcony of his mansion in the Hamptons one summer in the 2000s to let guests of a more sensitive disposition know that it would soon be time to go home. The debauchery was about to get serious. ‘We fed you all, we gave you drinks, now it’s time to enjoy life,’ he told them to cheers.
‘This is a celebration of life. This is the real White Party. Kids have an hour left [then] this thing turns into something that when you get older, this is something y’all gonna want to come to .
. . so let’s just start to get our groove on, put the kids away.
It’s all good.’ The occasion was one of Combs’s infamous White Parties, lavish extravaganzas which he threw each year from 1998 to 2009 – mainly at his 4,500 sq ft East Hamptons mansion but also in Beverly Hills and even in St Tropez. The rich and famous flocked to them, as they did to his equally glitzy birthday parties, with some boasting up to 1,000 guests.
Everyone from Beyonce and husband Jay-Z, Naomi Campbell, Kanye West and Mariah Carey to Sarah Jessica Parker, Martha Stewart, Salman Rushdie, Russell Brand and Leonardo DiCaprio were photographed at them, dutifully observing the strict all-white dress code. Meanwhile, a video invitation Combs sent for his 29th birthday party featured glowing tributes from Will Smith, Oprah Winfrey, Ben Stiller and even Donald Trump. Some described him as Hollywood’s Gatsby, and he was deli.
