Just two days after Diddy tweeted that he pays Sting a hefty $5,000 a day for using a sample of The Police’s classic track “Every Breath You Take,” the mogul clarified it was all jokes.
“I want y’all to understand I was joking! It’s called being Facetious,” Diddy tweeted on Friday (April 7). “Me and @OfficialSting have been friends for a long time! He never charged me $3K or $5K a day for Missing You. He probably makes more than $5K a day from one of the biggest songs in history.”
Diddy’s original tweet came in response to a resurfaced clip of a 2018 interview Sting did with The Breakfast Club, in which the singer-songwriter confirmed that the rapper pays him daily for reportedly not getting permission before sampling the hit on his 1997 track, “I’ll Be Missing You.”
“Is it true that Diddy had to pay you two grand a day because he didn’t have permission to sample ‘Every Breath You Take’?” host Charlamagne Tha God asks in the clip. Sting agreed and also emphasized, “for the rest of his life.” The 12-time Grammy winner did go on to also confirm that Diddy did finally get clearance for the sample, though after the fact.
In his response, Diddy corrected the duo and noted that he actually pays $5000, not $2000. “Love to my brother,” he wrote in the tweet.
The rapper’s hit “I’ll Be Missing You” was written to honor his friend Notorious B.I.G. after the rapper was fatally shot in March 1997. The song — a collab with Faith Evans and featuring 112 — debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on June 14, 1997, and stayed atop the chart for 11 weeks. It remained on the all-genre tally for a total of 33 weeks.
