"The Times has since concluded that the FBI reports were fabricated and that some of the other sources relied on — including the person Philips previously believed to be the 'confidential source' cited in the FBI reports — do not support major elements of the story," the paper explained in the retraction. Along with retracting the front-page Web story from March 17 and a shorter version that appeared in the actual paper on March 19, the Times also retracted the text of two online chats that Philips participated in on March 18 and March 25, and comments from the Times' Soundboard blog from March 21

Labels: Biggie Smalls, Diddy, LA, Report

"I've been through so much; hip-hop has been through so much; Biggie's, Tupac's [families] have been through so much," Combs told MTV News.

"To rehash the lies and just rumors like that, I didn't understand where that was coming from. I knew that I would never -- me and Biggie would never be involved, or even have any knowledge of that. Because if we have knowledge of something, we the type of people that's gonna warn somebody, we're gonna tell somebody. It just really hurt."

"Just knowing how people in this day and age, what they read online and what they see in the papers, they just take it as fact," Diddy explained. "It's like, come on, I been working so hard to rise above all of this stuff, and to see it now trying to pull me back down.

"[But] I stayed focused," he continued. "I was still. My grandmother told me, 'Be still.' No matter what it feels like, be still. And I was still and then the truth came out the way it was to come out. I didn't jump up and down about it. I let them give the apology and let people go back to the things they need to be focusing on about me, which is the #1 albums I'm dropping with Danity Kane and Day26, #1 fragrances, Janelle Monae, making this black history. And that's what it's about. But it's important to really deal with things however they come at you. And I've always done that my whole life and just always told the truth."

Labels: Biggie Smalls, Diddy, Report

Labels: Biggie Smalls, Diddy, LA, Report

From Rolling Stone...
The writer of the Los Angeles Times exposé on a 1994 Tupac Shakur shooting has defended the article despite denials by both Sean “Diddy” Combs and James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond. In a live chat on the Los Angeles Times website, Chuck Phillips said he didn’t seek out the story -- which alleged two Bad Boy Records associates were behind the ‘94 robbery and shooting of Shakur -- but that he “stumbled on it last year after learning the street names of the assailants.”

Labels: Diddy, LA, Report

Sean "Diddy" Combs and manager Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond issued quick and angry denials about an L.A. Times report released Monday morning claiming they were behind the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur at Quad Recording Studios in Times Square.

"This story is beyond ridiculous and is completely false," Diddy said in a statement Monday. "Neither Biggie [Smalls, the rapper at the center of Combs' Bad Boy Productions company] nor I had any knowledge of any attack before, during, or after it happened. It is a complete lie to suggest that there was any involvement by Biggie or myself. I am shocked that the Los Angeles Times would be so irresponsible as to publish such a baseless and completely untrue story."

Rosemond, now CEO of Czar Entertainment, said in a statement, "in the past 14 years, I have not even been questioned by law enforcement with regard to the assault of Tupac Shakur, let alone brought up on charges."

Labels: Biggie Smalls, Diddy, LA, Report

Now, newly discovered information, including interviews with people who were at the studio that night, lends credence to Shakur's insistence that associates of rap impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs were behind the assault. Their alleged motives: to punish Shakur for disrespecting them and rejecting their business overtures and, not incidentally, to curry favor with Combs.

The information focuses on two New York hip-hop figures -- talent manager James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond and promoter James Sabatino, who is now in prison for unrelated crimes.

FBI records obtained recently by The Times say that a confidential informant told authorities in 2002 that Rosemond and Sabatino "set up the rapper Tupac Shakur to get shot at Quad Studios." The informant said Sabatino had told him that Shakur "had to be dealt with."

The records -- summaries of FBI interviews with the informant conducted in July and December 2002 -- provide details of how Shakur was lured to the studio and ambushed. Others with knowledge of the incident corroborated the informant's account in interviews with The Times and gave additional details.

Labels: Diddy, LA, Report