A photograph shared on-line in September 2024 authentically confirmed Sean “Diddy” Combs posing subsequent to Barack Obama.
Why no fact score on this declare? Whereas the accessible proof suggests the {photograph} in query may be very doubtless genuine, Snopes has not but been in a position to confirm straight with the events concerned. We are going to replace this truth examine ought to extra proof turn into accessible.
In mid-September 2024, a photograph resurfaced on social media allegedly showing former U.S. President Barack Obama posing subsequent to Sean “Diddy” Combs. The music mogul and rapper was arrested on Sept. 16, 2024, on suspicion of intercourse trafficking, racketeering, and different prices.
“Simply Obama hanging out together with his buddy Diddy! Oh additionally Diddy was simply charged with s*x trafficking,” read one X publish with greater than 627,000 views as of this writing.
Simply Obama hanging out together with his buddy Diddy!
Oh additionally Diddy was simply charged with s*x trafficking pic.twitter.com/csuj9nRcRK
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 18, 2024
The image additionally unfold online in Could 2024, with one X consumer captioning the image: “Obama must repent, too. He introduced the demonic minstrel present to the Oval Workplace. It is not simply Diddy.”
The {photograph} gained specific consideration in late March 2024, when federal brokers executed search warrants and raided Combs’ houses in Los Angeles and Miami as a part of an ongoing intercourse trafficking investigation.
“The media does not need you to see this, so what to do,” one X consumer claimed on the time. Google reverse-image search outcomes confirmed it unfold on a number of social media platforms, similar to Instagram, 9GAG, TikTok, Facebook, and X. “Right here is President Obama throwing his assist behind a pedophile,” one other X publish read.
Nevertheless, opposite to what social media customers suggested, the picture itself didn’t point out any involvement in, or connection to, the precise controversies going through Combs on Obama’s half. Social media customers additionally underscored that the rapper had been photographed with varied different distinguished figures, together with former President Donald Trump.
In brief, regardless of the widespread circulation of the {photograph}, there have been no dependable sources confirming or denying its authenticity. Nevertheless, the existence of earlier photographs of Combs and Obama collectively, in addition to the rapper’s assist for Obama’s presidency, recommended the picture might be genuine. However till a reputable supply for the image is discovered, the analysis for this text will proceed.
Snopes contacted the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama and the Obama Foundation for a remark in Could 2024. We are going to replace this text if or once we obtain a response, or if new details about the {photograph} involves mild.
Combs did share a photograph with Obama in September 2017, through which the 2 had been wearing outfits resembling these seen within the picture in query. The {photograph} was posted on Combs’ Fb web page with the caption: “This week was an ideal week. Shout out to the king Barack Obama!!! #BlackExcellence.”
(Diddy / Fb)
Nevertheless, Barack Obama Presidential Library, a federal company administered by the Nationwide Archives and Information Administration, mentioned through electronic mail they “haven’t any data on this picture as a result of President Obama was a non-public citizen then.”
Combs as soon as interviewed Obama in 2004 — when the latter was operating for Senate — to encourage younger folks to vote.
“I believe we’re most likely chargeable for Obama being in workplace, sure. If no one else is gonna say it, then I am gonna say it. The boldness, the swagger we instilled in our communities made that attainable,” Combs mentioned in an 2009 interview with Playboy Journal. “If God mentioned I might decide one particular person to be my father, I would wish to be Sean Combs Obama. That is how dope he’s. I hope he reads this interview and adopts me,” he jokingly added.
