Kesha seriously turned heads when she made a surprise cameo during Reneé Rapp‘s set at Coachella, joining the Mean Girls star for a collaboration on her 2009 breakthrough hit, “Tik Tok.” The song that famously pays tribute to Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger (and partying very hard) opens with the iconic line “wake up in the mornin’ feelin’ like P Diddy.”
But in the wake of a raft of allegations of sexual assault and abuse aimed at the Bad Boy Records founder (born Sean Combs) — whose homes in Miami and L.A were raided last month by officers with the Homeland Security bureau in connection with an ongoing federal sex trafficking investigation — Kesha subtly, but pointedly, tweaked the line from her Animals album.
“Wake up in the mornin’ like, ‘F— P. Diddy,’” Kesha sang alongside Rapp, with both pop stars tossing up a middle finger at the same time. Kesha doubled-down later in the night, tweeting out the line as well, just in case anyone missed the reference. In November, shortly after the first stories of Diddy’s alleged actions came to light, Kesha removed the rapper’s name from “Tik Tok” during a performance in Los Angeles.
The lyrical lambasting was not lost on one of Diddy’s chief hip-hop mogul antagonists, 50 Cent, who has been relentlessly trolling the former Revolt boss over his legal issues in his signature snarky social posts. Above a video repost of the moment, 50 took yet another opportunity to poke at Diddy, writing, “LOL she said [middle finger emoji] Fvck P DIDDY, HAHAAHAHA [eyeball emoji] PUFFY LIKE 50 TOLD HER TO SAY THAT!”
Combs has kept a low profile since the mogul’s former girlfriend, singer Cassie, filed a lawsuit in November accusing the hip-hop entrepreneur of years of abuse and one accusation of rape. The lawsuit alleged that she had “endured over a decade of his violent behavior and disturbed demands,” including repeated beatings and forcing her to “engage in sex acts with male sex workers”; the suit was settled a day later. Diddy has denied any wrongdoing and in a social post after the Cassie settlement he lashed out at the “sickening allegations,” which his lawyer dubbed a “witch hunt.”
Diddy has also been accused of a “gang rape” of a teen in 2003 in a separate lawsuit, as well as sexual assault and sex trafficking in another lawsuit from music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones Jr.
In December, 50 said he was working on a documentary through his G-Unit Films division about the history of sexual misconduct allegations against Diddy, with 50 promising to donate proceeds to help victims of sexual assault. At press time there was no update on that project.
