In 1991, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Heavy D headlined a charity basketball game that ended in a deadly stampede. Far more people arrived at the gymnasium than the venue could hold, leading to a deadly crowd crush. Combs denied any culpability but paid the victims’ families. They said this did little to ease their pain because he wouldn’t apologize. 

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs hosted an event that ended in a deadly stampede

Early in Combs’ career, he worked at Uptown Records and promoted parties on the side. On Dec. 28, 1991, he headlined a charity basketball game at City College. While the gymnasium could fit a maximum of 2,730 people, roughly 5,000 showed up.

“Not only was it filled inside, there [were] probably just as many people outside that couldn’t get inside,” Tim Patterson, a childhood friend of Diddy’s, recalled in the Peacock documentary Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy (per Us Weekly).

The crowd rushed into the lobby and down a staircase to the gymnasium. The doors opened inward instead of outward, so people at the front could not open them. They remained closed for 15 minutes while more and more people tried to push their way in. Nine people at the bottom of the staircase died and 29 others were crushed. They were primarily teenagers.

While authorities did not charge Combs with anything, he faced civil suits and accusations of promoting the event as though it could fit 10,000 people, overselling tickets, and not hiring enough security.

The stampede victims’ families said Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs never apologized

Jason Swain’s brother Dirk died in the crowd crush. While his family received money from Combs, they never got an apology for the tragedy.

“All families settled and were given a settlement amount,” Swain said. “We got $40,000 from Sean Combs directly. But he never owned up to it, never just said, ‘I apologize.’”

Swain believes Combs lied to protect his image.

“There’s a clip of him saying that it wasn’t overbooked. … That’s a blatant lie. His image is important for him. The lies go back to City College. Had someone found him accountable, it may have just slowed down the process of all the other things that happened to other people.”

Sonny Williams’ sister Sonya was killed at the event. He didn’t believe the money Combs offered him was enough given his loss and all that Combs had.

“He calls me to the BMG building. It’s just me and him in the office, and he seemed very nervous. He seemed so nervous that his lips turned white,” Sonny Williams claimed. “And he says, ‘Sonny, I wanna offer you $50,000.’ I remember looking around the office and I’m seeing all these plaques now on the wall — platinum plaques, gold plaques. I said, ‘Brother, you got all this going on and you offering me $50,000?’ He said, ‘Sonny, man, listen, man, that’s  real generous — that’s a generous donation,’ and I lost it.”

He shared his feelings on the tragedy 

In 1998, Combs said he continued to grapple with the tragedy.

“City College is something I deal with every day of my life,” he said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “But the things that I deal with can in no way measure up to the pain that the families deal with. I just pray for the families and pray for the children who lost their lives every day.”