Sean “Diddy” Combs caught a wave of criticism late last month after a picture he uploaded to Instagram featuring JAY-Z, Kendrick Lamar and Nas turned out to have been edited to remove fellow rappers French Montana and Fabolous.

3 Kings! 3 GREAT FRIENDS! Love you guys. #BlackGreatness

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During a recent interview with The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Diddy clarified the situation. He pinned the blame on his young photo editor, who, Diddy says, hadn’t informed him the picture had been altered.

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“There’s this thing in social media called the #DiddyCrop,” he said. “I take a lot of pictures with a lot of different celebrities ‘cause we’re just all family and stuff. Sometimes, my photography editor, he doesn’t let me know when he’s taking people out of the pictures.”

Diddy later joked that his friends haven’t spoken to him since he uploaded the edited picture.

“There were people that were taken away that didn’t deserve to be taken away,” Diddy added. “I had nothing to do with it. It was this young kid that works for me; he wanted a picture of JAY-Z, Nas and Kendrick [Lamar]. So he used his social technology skills and that’s what he did. My friends haven’t been talking to me for like two weeks [laughs].”

Elsewhere, Diddy confirmed his interest in buying the Carolina Panthers.

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“I’m one of the people that are bidding and looking at it,” he said. “I feel it’s time for some minority ownership in the NFL, especially [as] 70% of the athletes are African-American and I think it’s important for them to see somebody that looks like them in an ownership position. And I think it’d be good for the NFL and for people as a whole.”

Watch the interview above.