Diddy may potentially be a key witness in the trial of the alleged murderer of late rap icon 2Pac.
According to The New York Post, Diddy, who’s currently serving a four-year sentence in New Jersey, could be the voice that exonerates suspect Duane “Keefe D” Davis.
The 62-year-old is the uncle of the late Orlando Anderson, a gang member beaten by Pac hours before the rapper was fatally shot. Anderson, authorities say, was in the vehicle with Davis when shots were fired into a BMW where 2Pac was a passenger. The rapper died on September 13, 1996, six days after the Las Vegas shooting.
As heard in a recording played in Netflix documentary Sean Combs: The Reckoning, Davis claimed back in 2008 that the Grammy winner offered him and his crew one million dollars to carry out the hit. At the time, the music mogul’s record label, Bad Boy Records and Death Row Records, the imprint that 2Pac was signed to before his death, were at odds during the East-West Coast feud that escalated to violence. In 1997, 2Pac’s former friend, Bad Boy artist The Notorious B.I.G., was slain in Los Angeles.
With Davis facing life in prison, attorneys for the suspect believe that Diddy’s testimony would absolve the charges against him. They reportedly expect Combs to deny the million dollar payment, as he has consistently done over the years. That denial would, the theory goes, then bolster Davis’ own defense that his prior claims of involvement in Pac’s murder — claims he made in his own book — were lies for the sake of clout and money.
“Duane has made his feelings clear – if Diddy is a witness or makes a statement denying what he told cops then that helps him hugely,” said a family friend, per NYP. “Another factor is that this case will be a jury trial..and there is a suspicion that celebrities are often seen preferentially. So if Diddy backed up this story [that Davis made up the tale of the million dollar payment] it would help immensely.”
Diddy has repeatedly denied involvement in the shooting of 2Pac, even appearing on Today in 2017 and calling the incident “senseless” and “tragic.”
Davis’ murder trial is scheduled to begin on August 10, 2026.
