Friday, October 4, 2024

What Year Is It? Vanity Fair Puts 90s Star Puff Daddy On the Cover, Warns Away the Rest of their Readers

Share

What year is it again?

The September issue of Vanity Fair has an unusual cover subject: Sean “Puffy” Combs, 90s record mogul, who is a nice guy but as not part of 2021 as possible.

The cover line for the issue: Party Like It’s 1999. Why? Who knows? (The September issue usually kicks off the fall season. Is VF telling us there is no fall season? I think so. )

Combs has made a fortune, mostly from his association with Ciroc Vodka. He hasn’t had any kind of hit record in more than a decade, or longer. His celebrity heyday is long over. (No offense, that’s almost a good thing.)

The piece is so in depth that it lacks mention of his music mentor, Clive Davis, who put Combs’s Bad Boy Records on the map 20 plus years ago; or Ron Burkle, who staked him in his Sean John clothing line. Also omitted is Shyne, the rapper who went to jail for Combs after his famous trial. You may recall when Jennifer Lopez, aka JLo, dated Puffy. They were involved in a shoot out in a Times Square nightclub before going on the lam. Also brushed from this story is Puffy’s famous Champagne bottle attack on rap exec Steve Stoute.

And where is the outrage? Puffy gave a speech at Davis’s 2020 pre-Grammy dinner putting the Grammys on notice, giving them one year to change or else. That might have been a hook here. Alas not.

Yes, Vanity Fair is really doubling down on investigation journalism. The big news is Puffy is changing his name to Sean “Love” Combs and is starting an R&B label, whatever that means.

Meantime, Vanity Fair’s circulation is in the dumps, both on the newsstand and digitally. I’m sure this cover story should fix things.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

Read more

In Other News