A woman who has long maintained that Sean “Diddy” Combs shot her in the face during a notorious club event in 1999 expressed her satisfaction over his recent arrest.
Natania Reuben shared in a recent interview that her daughter, Nirvana, informed her on Monday about the Bad Boy Records founder’s detention by federal authorities. He now faces three serious charges: sex trafficking through force, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation for the purpose of prostitution. “She says, ‘Mommy, guess who’s in custody?’” She reportedly said to the Daily Beast on Wednesday. “I asked her if it was somebody locally in town that we know. And she’s like, ‘No, he’s bigger.’”
Once Reuben realized it was Combs, she said she “screamed out to God, ‘Thank you, merciful father!’” As we previously shared, in December 1999, Reuben was at a nightclub in Manhattan with a friend when the rapper known as “Act Bad” and his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Lopez, showed up for a party. At the party, Combs became involved in a heated verbal dispute with a supposed drug dealer, which quickly escalated into gunfire.
Reuben stated that she was caught in the line of fire when she witnessed Combs purportedly shoot her in the face.
“I watched him,” she told the Daily beast. “I saw him with my own eyes.”
Reuben, who was struck in the center of her eyes by a 9mm hollow-point bullet, described the sensation as if she had been hit by “Paul Bunyan’s flaming-hot sledgehammer.”
“I called out to God and said, ‘Don’t take me. I’m not finished raising my kids, I have work to do,’” she recalled, referring to her two young sons at the time.
Following the shooting, Combs, Barrow, Jones, and the now 55-year-old actress from “Selena” attempted to escape the scene but were stopped by police after a brief pursuit. Authorities discovered a stolen and loaded 9mm semiautomatic firearm, leading to weapons possession charges against the three men. Lopez was arrested and detained for over 12 hours but ultimately faced no charges.