When writer Tressie McMillan Cottom interviewed Sean “Diddy” Combs, she picked up on an uneasy energy at his home. She said that the members of his staff were very polite and attentive and the house was nice. Everything felt staged. She compared the feeling to being in The Truman Show.

A writer recalled her bizarre interview with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

When Cottom arrived at Combs’ home, she said it was clear that there was more going on than it seemed.

“The first floor was set up very deliberately,” she told The Independent. “But there was a ton of activity I could hear, people, on the second floor … it sounded like there had to have been about maybe a dozen people upstairs.”

When she met his staff, she said they were “very deferential,” but none of them wanted their names on the record. Cottom recalled thinking that they all shared an “extreme sense of paranoia.” To her, it felt as though everyone pre-planned their actions and behavior.

“I had walked into the Truman Show,” she said. “I do remember thinking, everything that is not being said here is as important as what he is saying – so who is here, where they’re standing, who is silent, the people who kept entering and exiting the room and somehow knew exactly what they were supposed to do … all of that, to me, was as much a part of the story, and it was extremely unique. And I like to think I’ve talked to some strange characters in my time, but this was in the top tier of strangeness.”

The writer said Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs didn’t seem to know how to behave around her

Cottom said that Combs’ behavior was very deliberate as well. She said that Combs put on “one of the most deliberate acts of seduction I’ve ever been involved with.” She explained he flirted with her as though “trying to charm her, but not in a serious, sexual way.”

It didn’t ring true to her.

“My sense was he never really engaged with a woman like me, someone who didn’t really need anything from him,” she said. “And he was a little off his game … so he kept trying different approaches.”

He reminded her of a child

Combs is several years older than Cottom, but he kept describing himself as a “young man” during their conversation. He also boasted about his looks.

“He kept talking about, ‘I’m an attractive young man,’” Cottom said. “The way he would describe himself, first of all, was ‘young’ which I thought was bizarre. It was telling that he has created a character version of himself that is powerful and sexy and physically attractive when really, what he is, is rich.”

To her, the way he spoke seemed childish.

“Absent the money and the star power, I’m not sure we would look at him and think those things, but that’s the kind of story a very scared, self-conscious little boy would write about himself, right?”