Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jennifer Lopez dated on and off between 1999 and 2001. The couple’s romance had its fair share of ups and downs; they were arrested together and she believed he cheated on her throughout the relationship. Still, Diddy walked away from the relationship still thinking fondly of Lopez. He once said that he considered her one of his great loves.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs said Jennifer Lopez was one of his great loves
In 1999, Diddy and Lopez began dating. As their relationship continued on, she began to suspect he was cheating on her. By 2001, when Diddy was on trial for his involvement in a nightclub shooting , Lopez had ended the relationship.
Shortly afterward, Diddy said he did not hold onto any bad feelings toward her .
“Well, you know, I wish her the best in her life. I always have,’’ he told The New Yorker in 2002. “But … Look, if she is happy, then I am happy for her.’’
Diddy has spoken positively about her over the years, and once told Entertainment Tonight that he “without a doubt” thinks of her as one of the great loves of his life.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs once said he dated Jennifer Lopez to get a reaction out of Kim Porter
While Diddy said he did genuinely love Lopez, he admitted that he still had strong feelings for his ex, Kim Porter, while he was with her. He began the relationship with Lopez while he and Porter were still together. Diddy admitted that he wanted a partner who was less laid-back than Porter.
“I’m used to applause when I walk in the room and she was just too cool,” he told Essence . “I would tell her, ‘I guess I’ll go be with someone else who’ll take care of me the way I want to be taken care of, who’ll be a little more aggressive.’”
Porter said that the media circus surrounding Diddy and Lopez never concerned her .
“That relationship wasn’t real,” she said. “The world just saw the bright lights and the camera. But I knew what was really going on. He was still in love with me.”
The couple got back together in 2003 before breaking up for good in 2007.
She did not like to talk about their relationship publicly
Lopez spoke a bit about her suspicions of Diddy’s infidelity after the breakup. While they were together, though, she said little about him. There was so much attention on their relationship that she wanted to maintain whatever privacy she could.
“There are some things you have to keep sacred and private,” she told Rolling Stone in 2001. “In this business, your soul is so public and open and out there for everybody. There is no privacy. There really isn’t. At the end of the day, you really have to fight to keep certain things sacred so that they survive. And sometimes they don’t, and that’s life, but you try.”