You've probably seen the photos. Or at least, the versions of them that have been screaming across your social media feed for months. There’s a specific one—grainy, looking like a late-90s or early-2000s red carpet snap—where Kamala Harris is standing next to a man people are swearing is P Diddy. It’s the kind of thing that makes you pause. In the current climate, with the legal walls closing in on the Bad Boy Records founder, everyone is looking for a connection.
But here’s the thing. Most of what you're seeing is just plain wrong.
The Truth About That Viral Photo
The internet loves a "gotcha" moment. When Sean "Diddy" Combs was arrested in September 2024 and subsequently convicted in 2025 for charges related to his business dealings and "freak-offs," the digital archeology began. People started digging through every celebrity's past, looking for a link.
They found one. Or they thought they did.
There is a real photo of Kamala Harris from May 18, 2001. She’s at the Eighth Annual Race to Erase Multiple Sclerosis gala in Century City, California. She looks great. She’s standing next to a tall, handsome man in a suit.
That man is not P Diddy.
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It's Montel Williams. You remember him—the talk show host. Harris and Williams dated briefly back then, a fact Williams has been totally open about on X (formerly Twitter). In the viral versions of this photo, someone used AI or some old-school Photoshop to superimpose Diddy’s face over Montel’s. It’s a fake. A complete fabrication that even high-profile political figures ended up resharing before the fact-checkers could get their boots on.
Why do people keep falling for it?
Honestly, it’s because we want to believe there’s a secret "list." We’ve seen the headlines about the 1,000 bottles of baby oil and the federal raids on Diddy's homes in Miami and LA. When a figure that big falls, the natural instinct is to assume everyone in power was at the party.
But if you look at the actual evidence, the connection between P Diddy and Kamala Harris is much more boring than the memes suggest. It’s basically professional and strictly public.
The 2020 COVID Town Hall
If you’re looking for a real-life interaction, you have to look at 2020. This was back when the world was shut down and everyone was doing those awkward Zoom town halls. Diddy hosted a "State of Emergency" town hall on REVOLT TV to discuss how COVID-19 was disproportionately hitting the Black community.
Kamala Harris, who was a Senator at the time, made an appearance.
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She thanked him. She said, "Sean, I want to thank you for always having a way of convening and bringing folks together."
That’s the "smoking gun" people point to. But you have to remember the context. In 2020, Diddy wasn’t a federal defendant; he was a mogul with a massive platform. Harris was doing what politicians do: reaching out to an audience of millions through a popular media figure. It’s the same reason politicians go on The Breakfast Club or Saturday Night Live. It’s about the reach, not a personal endorsement of someone’s private life.
Navigating the 2025 Legal Fallout
As we sit here in 2026, the landscape has shifted. Diddy is currently serving a sentence of over four years after a high-profile trial that wrapped up in 2025. While he was acquitted of the most severe racketeering charges, the conviction on prostitution-related transportation charges was enough to send shockwaves through the industry.
During that trial, a lot of names came up. Jurors were asked about their knowledge of various celebrities, from Yung Miami to Kanye West.
Guess whose name wasn't on the witness list or the list of "associates" in the indictment?
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Kamala Harris.
There is no record of her attending his private parties. No flight logs. No testimony. The federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have been incredibly thorough, and so far, the "Diddy and Harris" connection remains a product of political mudslinging rather than criminal evidence.
The Reality of Celebrity Proximity
Politicians and celebrities live in the same orbit. They attend the same galas, they speak at the same conventions, and they sometimes even date the same people—look at the Montel Williams overlap. But proximity isn't participation.
You’ve got to be careful with what you share. Misinformation travels faster than the truth because the truth is usually a lot less sensational.
- Check the source: If a photo looks like it was taken on a Nokia 3310 but the faces are strangely HD, it's probably a deepfake.
- Verify dates: The 2001 gala photo is well-documented by Getty Images. You can literally go find the original and see Montel Williams standing there.
- Look for the motive: Most of these "links" surfaced during the 2024 election cycle. They weren't news; they were weapons.
How to Spot the Fakes Yourself
If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you need to develop a "BS detector" for celebrity-political crossovers. It's only going to get harder as AI gets better.
- Reverse Image Search: Take that "shocking" photo and drop it into Google Lens. Nine times out of ten, you'll find the original source within seconds.
- Ignore the Captions: Captions like "The list goes to the top!" are designed to trigger an emotional response. They aren't reporting facts.
- Follow the Indictments: If a name isn't in the court documents, it's probably not part of the story. Federal prosecutors don't tend to hide big names if they have the evidence to back it up.
Staying informed means looking past the "freak-off" rumors and sticking to what’s actually on the record. Right now, the record shows a politician who once did a Zoom call with a mogul—and a lot of internet trolls with way too much time on their hands.