Conor McGregor met American rapper P. Diddy – real name Sean Combs – in 2013, posing for a photo alongside fellow UFC star Michael Bisping at a college football game
Conor McGregor may’ve posed for a photo with rapper P. Diddy but the UFC legend actually wanted to punch him in the face.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was this week jailed after being charged with sex trafficking and racketeering. Despite denying all charges and his lawyers requesting a $50million (€38m) bail in his second court application on Wednesday, that was denied and he was labelled a flight risk by the prosecution.
Appearing on an episode of Ireland’s The Late Late Show with Ryan Tubridy back in 2014, McGregor spoke about his meeting with Diddy. In October of the previous year, ‘the Notorious’ shared a photo of him putting one arm around the American and his other around fellow UFC star Michael Bisping. The caption read: “Me, P. Diddy and Big Mike!!!”
When asked by Tubridy about the encounter, Conor McGregor said: “P. Diddy’s a little up his own ass, to be honest. We were at a college football game – UCLA. But he is, you know, he didn’t even want to get in the picture. He barely shook my hand. I was about to give him just a left to the chin.”
As the audience and Tubridy laughed, the now 36-year-old continued by saying: “This is LA, isn’t it? You just go around meeting people. I’m just having fun. P. Diddy’s on the bottom of the list of people I wanted to meet, especially after finally meeting him.”
At the time, McGregor was on his way to becoming the biggest star in UFC. A year after his appearance on The Late Late Show, he was crowned UFC Featherweight Champion of the World.
Reaching his peak around the turn of the millennium, Diddy has only released one LP since McGregor’s comments, 2023’s ‘The Love Album: Off the Grid’. His private life has take centre stage since, with Combs’ hearing set for Tuesday, September 24.
As for Conor McGregor, he hasn’t fought in since losing to Dustin Poirier in July 2021. Michael Chandler was supposed to be his comeback opponent in June of this year but the pair’s hotly-anticipated bout was postponed after McGregor suffered a broken toe in training. It marked the first time that ‘the Notorious’ had pulled out of a professional fight because of an injury.
On Thursday, UFC President Dana White insisted that although Conor McGregor was nearing a return to full fitness, we’ll still have to be patient before seeing him back in the octagon. “It’s going to be determined by when Conor comes back, who the opponent is,” White replied when asked if McGregor would fight the winner of November’s clash between Charles Oliveira and Chanlder.
“Whenever Conor is ready and he comes back. He hit me up last night when he heard that I was here. He’s in New York right now and he’s training.”