Markets

Will Sean "Diddy" Combs Be Invited to Steve Stoute's Hall of Achievement Induction?

By Jim Edwards

Updated on: November 19, 2008 / 10:28 AM EST / MoneyWatch

Steve Stoute of Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging is to be inducted into the AAF's Hall of Achievement. Stoute is best known for his work bringing together corporate America with pop and rap endorsers. But before he entered the ad business and formed the Arnell Group's PASS shop, he was more famous for being the record company executive who took a famous beating from Sean "Diddy" Combs, back when the latter was calling himself Puff Daddy.

An argument between the two broke out over a disagreement in the editing of a Nas video in which Combs appeared nailed to a cross. Combs asked for the image to be removed but Stoute left it in. In response, Combs and two other thugs beat Stoute with a champagne bottle, a telephone and a chair, in Stoute's office. According to Entertainment Weekly:

Stoute said he had his head covered and couldn't see exactly who was beating him.

Stoute suffered either a broken jaw or a broken arm. Combs was charged but the case was dropped:

Combs offered an apology to Stoute six weeks after the incident, claiming that the delay was due to Stoute's failure to return his calls. "Puffy reached out to me and said, 'Whatever happened happened, but as a man, I apologize to you,'" Stoute [said]. "I told him, 'I appreciate you calling.'"

Just before the case was set to go to trial, lawyers for both Stoute and Combs met with prosecutors and asked them to drop charges. The pair reportedly settled out of court, with Stoute receiving a reported half-million-dollar payout and Combs enrolling in a one-day anger management seminar after pleading guilty to charges of harassment instead of felony assault.

"Whatever happened happened"! Indeed, relations between Stoute and Combs have cooled over the years. Stoute rationalized the experience to Complex magazine this way:

The first thing I learned is people take the story and blow it out of proportion. The second thing I learned is people love associating anything they can with stuff that's negative. That's unfortunate. I can't control how people look at me or at him. The question should be asked of him -- I don't know if people look at him that way.

And in 2007 they were seen wearing the same sweater and talking together.

Combs probably won't turn up. His attempt to create his own ad agency business was a failure, with Blue Flame Marketing + Advertising flaming out and devolving into Combs' own licensing arm.