Mere moments before his arrest, Sean “Diddy” Combs was hanging out in NYC as if nothing was about to happen.
Footage obtained by the Daily Mail shows the embattled rapper in Central Park, one of the most popular parks in the world, with his son Christian Combs just hours before Homeland Security arrested him at a Manhattan hotel.
In the footage, the rapper is seen in a black tank top, gray sweatpants, and white sneakers, casually sitting in the park among the many New Yorkers and tourists. Though a few commenters couldn’t believe it could be “Diddy,’’ the mogul is seen clearly in the video, sitting in the sun, flipping through his phone in one of the park’s open areas, likely the section of the park called “The Sheep Meadow.”
While he looked relaxed from the back, when he turns to the camera, his face seems to show a flash of stress, and many commenters said he looked worried or scared.
In other footage obtained by the Daily Mail, Combs was also seen walking around the streets of midtown Manhattan, engaging and taking selfies with various fans who came up to him. Mere hours after the Central Park footage on Monday afternoon, Combs was arrested by Homeland Security outside of his Manhattan hotel room.
As The Root previously reported, Diddy was arrested Monday on a list of very serious charges, which were revealed on Tuesday morning. Among them, Diddy is facing three charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
In a press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams detailed the charges, saying that the disgraced star allegedly, “used force, threats of force, and coercion to cause victims to engage in extended sexual performances with male commercial sex workers, some of whom he transported or caused to be transported over state lines.”
The federal indictment also details Combs’ allegedly planned and controlled the sex performances called “freak offs.” Williams detailed that these events would allegedly last days at a time, involved drugs, and were even recorded by the rapper on multiple occasions.
On Tuesday after his arrest, Diddy plead not guilty and was denied bail, as The Root reported. Diddy was denied bail once again on Wednesday and was ordered to remain in federal custody in a special housing unit of Metropolitan Detention Center-Brooklyn.
Viewers of the Central Park footage of course took to the comment section on TikTok with their thoughts on the footage, with one user writing, “he’s trying to soak up normal life before going in...for possibly a long time.”
Another one shared similar sentiments, suspecting that Diddy may have known that the arrest was on the way. They wrote, “he knew. that’s when u start appreciating simple things in life.”
But many others said he looked scared or stressed or scared.