Bow Wow has recalled a time Diddy checked him over his “clown” behavior and said he was grateful for the confrontation.
The “Let Me Hold You” hitmaker spoke about the incident during a sitdown on Math Hoffa’s My Expert Opinion, and said Diddy came to him when he was consistently getting clowned online as he attempted to transition from child star to respected artist.
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Bow Wow (born Shad Moss) had just starred in the 2011 Tyler Perry film Madea’s Big Happy Family at the time, and he started to notice memes about him were starting to pick up online.
“I think once we started picking up on the internet with memes and different shit, you couldn’t get away with certain shit, or people would just find things and make ’em funny,” he said. “That’s when it was like, ‘Okay, a lot of this stuff is self-inflicted.'”
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Bow Wow went on to say that as things began to escalate, he attended a pajama party at Diddy’s alongside other celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Nelly, and the Bad Boy Records boss yanked him aside to give him some career advice.
“That n-gga told me straight up: ‘Come here, don’t be doing no clown shit. The fuck wrong with you?’” Bow Wow recalled Diddy saying. “N-gga, you know we don’t associate with no clown shit. You Bow, n-gga. You better understand your brand and get out here and go to work. C’mon, man. You doing it to yourself. Go to work. Be quiet, lay low and go to work and watch what’s gonna happen.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4j5CKuNoOo&t=380s
Shad Moss said Puff’s tough love changed his mindset and ultimately his career trajectory.
“That conversation is what put everything in perspective to me, and once I had that conversation I was like, ‘You know, I can’t be doing that dumb ass shit. I’m around the top dogs. N-gga, I cant — the fuck?” he said.
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He also went on to say that as his career improved, so did the opinion of him among his OGs — including JAY-Z.
“I got JAY-Z telling [Jermaine Dupri], ‘N-gga, I’m not doing the [So So Def 20th] anniversary [concert] if Bow Wow not there.’ And I saw the text,” he said.
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“Jermaine hit Hov, he was like, ‘Yo, we doing this, come out.’ He replied back, ‘Is Bow Wow gonna be there? That’s the only way I’m gonna do it if he’s there.”
He added: “I’m like, ‘Hell yeah, it’s up!’ I started recognizing all this shit, like, ‘I can’t be that’ … I don’t even have an answer for the stupid shit I’ve done.”
This isn’t the first time Bow Wow has shown love to Diddy. In 2021, the former 106 & Park host credited Puff for teaching him how to be a successful family man.
“My kids’ moms – you see, I don’t even like to say baby mom or baby mother,” Bow told The Shade Room. “My children’s moms, they can call me for anything and I’ma get it done. If they out of town, if they in Miami, they need something, they want to go to… No matter what it is … We family, and I think that’s important.”
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He continued: “And I got that from Puff. He taught me a lot being around him, watching how he moves. I’m always asking him questions like, ‘How do you do it? How? How?’ It’s a blessing. And it works well when it’s like that. It’s a family thing. I love them both and I’m just happy that I got two good ones on my side. I’m done after this. No more for Bow.”
