A new photo purporting to depict Kamala Harris alongside rapper Sean Combs is spreading on social media. Combs—also known as Diddy, P. Diddy, and Puff Daddy—was arrested in New York in September on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking.
“Kamala’s team has spent more than $5 million having images of her with Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs bleached from the internet,” the post says. “It would be a shame if this made the rounds.”
The image is fake. The original picture, shown below, was taken in December 2019 at Combs’ 50th birthday party and shows the rapper with ex-girlfriend Misa Hylton, with whom he had a child in 1993. In the altered image, the picture has been flipped and Harris’ face photoshopped onto Hylton’s body.
A similar fake image of Harris and Combs circulated in September following his arrest, which The Dispatch Fact Check debunked at the time. Combs stands accused of several serious crimes, as we reported previously:
Ten sexual assault lawsuits were filed against Combs last year, and the rapper’s Los Angeles and Miami homes were raided by Homeland Security Investigations officers in March. According to the indictment, Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct,” and “relied on the employees, resources, and influence of the multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled—creating a criminal enterprise whose members and associates engaged in, and attempted to engage in, among other crimes, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.”
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