Trump Confirms Diddy Sent Pardon Letter, Says He’s ‘Not Considering’ It

Sean “Diddy” Combs personally wrote to President Donald Trump requesting a presidential pardon, Trump confirmed in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times published Thursday. According to the report, however, the president is not considering granting the request.

While speculation about a pardon bid had circulated for months — including Trump previously acknowledging that Combs had asked for clemency — Thursday’s interview marked the first official confirmation that a formal letter was sent. Combs, 56, is currently serving a 50-month federal prison sentence stemming from prostitution-related charges.

Trump told The Times that Combs “asked me for a pardon” and that the request came “through a letter.” He said he offered to show reporters the letter during the interview but ultimately did not. Trump added plainly that he is not weighing a pardon at this time.

Despite the public backlash surrounding Combs’ conviction and the broader allegations tied to his name, the request itself wasn’t entirely unexpected. Trump has already issued sweeping and controversial pardons during his current term, including clemency for all convicted participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2024 for drug trafficking and firearms offenses.

Trump and Combs were once publicly friendly, often appearing in overlapping celebrity and business circles prior to Trump’s first presidential run in 2015. But Trump has repeatedly suggested their relationship soured once politics entered the picture.

“I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great, and he seemed like a nice guy,” Trump said in a 2025 interview with Newsmax. “I didn’t know him well. But when I ran for office, he was very hostile.”

Trump echoed that sentiment last October from the Oval Office, telling reporters, “I call him Puff Daddy; he has asked me for a pardon.” He added that Combs’ past criticism of him made the request more complicated, saying, “When you knew someone and you were fine and then you run for office and he made some terrible statements… it makes it more difficult to do.”

During Trump’s failed 2020 reelection campaign, Combs was outspoken in his opposition, calling for Trump’s removal from office and declaring that “white men like Trump need to be banished.”

For now, Trump appears unmoved, signaling that Combs’ letter — while real — is unlikely to change his legal fate.