Bad Boy rapper-turned-Leader of the Opposition in the Belize House of Representatives, Moses “Shyne” Barrow, has weighed in on his deeply embattled former boss and mentor, Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was arrested and held without bond earlier this week on racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
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Honestly, a lot of people were probably waiting to hear what Shyne had to say about all of this, because, well, a lot of people blame Diddy for what many see as his unjust incarceration — including Shyne, apparently.
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During a press conference, LoveFM Belize reports that he said Diddy “sent him to prison,” which is not so shocking.
“One of the things that I would never wish on my worst enemy is to be incarcerated or to be sick, to be bedridden. So I take no joy in anyone’s challenges whether with the criminal justice system or otherwise,” Barrow began while speaking at a press conference in Belize Wednesday reports LoveFM Belize. “But I’d just like to clarify. You have to be truthful in the description of the relationship. This is someone who in essence testified against me when I was on trial, when I was an 18-year-old kid just wanting to do nothing other than make my mother proud and make Belize proud and do what all of us want to do, be recognized for our talent and take over the world. I was defending him and he turned around and called witnesses to testify against me and he contributed — he pretty much sent me to prison. So that is the context by which you must always describe that relationship.”
Shyne said he “forgave” Diddy and “moved on,” but added, “Let us not pretend as if I was in Miami for Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
Shyne was charged with assault and sentenced to 10 years in prison in June 2001 following a shooting at a nightclub in NYC where Diddy and his then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, were in attendance. Lopez, Diddy, and his bodyguard walked away with no charges that night while Shyne, who has maintained that he never shot anyone, ended up incarcerated. Incidentally, the victim in the shooting, Natania Reuben, who has long claimed it was Diddy who shot her in the face, celebrated the Bad Boy mogul’s arrest and spoke about it in an interview with the Daily Beast Wednesday, saying she “screamed out to God, ‘Thank you, merciful father!’” after her daughter alerted her to the news.
Anyway, during the press conference, Shyne pushed back on reporters who questioned him about his relationship with Diddy since he’s been out of prison and exclaimed that his life was “destroyed” by the 54-year-old.
“So, let us not lose sight of what the cold, hard facts are,” he said. “This is not someone who I vacationed with and who he and I enjoyed this great, intimate relationship of brotherhood. This is someone who destroyed my life and who I forgave and who I moved on and for the better interest of Belize, because he was in a position at that time to give scholarships and to maybe invest, I would not deny attempting to bring the investment to Belize and contribution to education to Belize.”
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