Ana Gasteyer has claimed Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs demanded the Saturday Night Live set be “shut down” when he performed on the show as a musical guest in the 1990s.
During an appearance on the Las Culturistas podcast on Wednesday, the actress recalled how the now-disgraced hip-hop mogul requested the “whole building” be closed when he appeared on the long-running TV sketch programme in May 1998.
“You can tell like the five a**holes in the six years that I was there (between 1996 and 2002) when they would be like, ‘So and so is in the building, everybody stay in your dressing rooms.’ Which is applicable if you’re a presidential candidate,” she said. “But apart from that, really, it’s my house. For P. Diddy, he demanded a totally closed set.”
Gasteyer went on to recount how Will Ferrell decided to “march” into Combs’s rehearsal as a character named Ron on the Thursday before the show aired at the suggestion of some of the writers.
The rapper had been rehearsing his 1998 track Come With Me, which samples the 1975 Led Zeppelin song Kashmir, at the time.
“I have the video from the control room where Sean Combs is rapping with like, ‘Da-na-na, da-na-na, da-na-na, da-na-na’ behind him. And Ron’s walking around, looking really disoriented (in character),” the 57-year-old remembered. “It is the greatest thing that’s ever happened because what a deserved person to have their Kashmir moment interrupted by Ron, and (Combs) really did not roll with it. He was very uncomfortable, but it was also just like, the artifice of all that faux importance.”
“Like what’s gonna happen? You’re gonna walk into the studio and you’re gonna be like, ‘I’m in the studio. I work here,'” she continued.
Previously, Ferrell shared a similar story during an interview for Vulture in 2020.
“Someone said, ‘Ron should go up onstage,’ and before everyone turned to see, I had sprinted out the door,” he recalled at the time.
In September, Combs was arrested and charged with sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
The Bad Boy Records founder, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, remains in federal custody while awaiting trial.
Representatives for SNL and Combs have not yet responded to Gasteyer’s claims.
