The federal raid on Sean “Diddy” Combs’ homes has led many curious fans to look back at the rapper’s personal life over the years, including the brief time when he took in Usher. In a newly-resurfaced clip, Usher told Howard Stern that he lived with Combs for about a year at the age of 14 when he was first breaking into the industry. Usher denied the rumors about Combs’ home at the time, but said that “it was curious.”
Usher was born in Dallas, Texas and spent most of his childhood in Chattanooga, Tennessee, though when his career began taking off at age 10, his family moved to Atlanta, Georgia in search of opportunities. At age 14, his record label put him in Combs’ care in the hopes that Combs could nurture his talent. In this resurfaced interview from 2016, Usher told Stern: “I moved to New York City and I lived with Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs for a year. In the 90s, do you understand what that’s like?”
Stern recalled that the program as called “Puffy’s Flavor Camp,” and joked: “Puffy’s place was, like, just filled with chicks and orgying, like, non-stop, right?” Usher denied that, in spite of all the recent allegations against Combs.
“Nah, not really,” Usher said. “It was curious. I got a chance to see some things… I went there to see the lifestyle, and I saw it. And it was… But, I don’t know if I could indulge and understand what I was even looking at. It was pretty wild. It was crazy.”
Co-host Robin Quivers chimed in, saying: “So, nobody tried to, you know, some woman didn’t come along…?” Usher laughed and said: “I didn’t say that. What I did say is that there were very curious things taking place, and I didn’t necessarily understand it.” Stern and Quivers asked a few more questions, including whether Usher would considering putting his own children through the same “Flavor Camp” program. He responded: “Hell no.”
Usher spoke more about his time with Combs in a 2004 interview with Rolling Stone where he described it as the “hardest days” of his life. He said: “I had to knuckle up, figure shit out in New York.” At the time, Usher’s budding career was in jeopardy as his voice was changing through puberty, so he may have been referring to that more than Combs’ tutelage.
Combs has been accused of sexual assault, harassment, human trafficking and other forms of sexual abuse by several people at this point, and has denied wrongdoing publicly in some cases. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security executed a simultaneous raid on Combs’ houses in L.A., New York and Miami all at once. There are still few details publicly available about the investigation that led to those raids. So far, Combs has not been detained.