Diddy once almost came to blows with Will Smith after he and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, “made advances” on his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, according to the Bad Boy mogul’s former bodyguard Gene Deal.
Deal was asked about the alleged incident in an interview with The Art of Dialogue, where he recalled Puff’s heated reaction after suspecting that the Men In Black star and his actress wife were trying to lure J.Lo into the bedroom.
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“We were at a birthday party that I think Matt Damon was giving for Ben Affleck. It was just a little gathering at the Four Seasons,” Deal remembered. “Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Puff, Will Smith and Jada were sitting on [one] side of the room.
“[Puff] stood up. And when he stood up, he walked and did his arms a certain kind of way like [crossing them]. I go over towards him and he said to me, ‘Yo, I think Will and Jada are trying to scoop up Jennifer. I want you to stay close ’cause I’ma snuff him.'”
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Gene Deal laughed as he recalled thinking to himself that Will Smith would most likely “beat the shit” out of Diddy, although he acknowledged that his former employer could “scrap.”
The ex-bodyguard also remembered strategically positioning himself far away enough from Puff so that if he were to snuff Will, “I could move slow enough that Will could probably get two or three punches back in.”
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“That shit was funny,” he concluded with a chuckle. “He thought that Jada and Will were coming on too strong to Jennifer, making advances.”
It’s unclear when the alleged incident happened exactly, but Diddy and Jennifer Lopez dated between late 1999 and early 2001 after meeting on a music video set.
Despite once apparently wanting to punch Will Smith, Diddy reportedly played the role of peacemaker last year when the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars for poking fun at Jada Pinkett’s alopecia.
Page Six reported at the time that Puff “spoke to both [Smith and Rock] separately” after the incident, which made front-page news around the globe.
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“I never confirmed they had reconciled,” Diddy clarified to TMZ. “I said, ‘As brothers, they will work it out, and let’s move on with love.’”
Gene Deal’s comments come on the heels of various bombshell revelations about Will Smith and Jada Pinkett’s marriage. During an interview with Today earlier this month, Jada revealed that she and Will have been secretly separated since 2016, although they are not technically divorced.
In a separate interview with PEOPLE, the 52-year-old actress denied that their marriage was an open relationship, despite her high-profile fling with R&B singer August Alsina.
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“I think where that got confusing is that as time went on, there were different stages in my marriage where Will and I decided we were not together,” she said. “We didn’t tell the public, where I was actually thinking about divorcing, separating.
“There’ve been several of those where we’ve gone and lived our separate lives. So I think within that is where people might’ve thought that, ‘Oh, they must be having an open relationship.'”
