Moses “Shyne” Barrow is done faking nice with Sean “Diddy” Combs, finally claiming nearly 25 years later that the incarcerated ex-mogul set him up to take the fall for the 1999 Manhattan Club shooting, caused him to spend nearly a decade in prison, and “destroyed my life.”
Combs and then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez were arrested immediately after the shooting for their alleged involvement, but the charges were ultimately dropped—and witnesses pinned the shooting on Barrow, who had also accompanied the couple to the nightclub.
Barrow, who was signed to Diddy’s Bad Boy Records, now says that Diddy and J.Lo’s dropped charges were no accident. “I was defending [Diddy] and he turned around and called witnesses to testify against me,” Barrow told the press on Thursday, “and he pretty much sent me to prison.”
Barrow has been nearly silent on the subject ever since it happened, focusing instead on how he turned his life around following his prison release, and became a political leader in his home country of Belize. In 2021, when he was pressed on whether or not he took the fall for Diddy and remained silent out of “loyalty,” Barrow sidestepped the question, telling talk show host Tamron Hall, “Everything I went through was worth it,” because he liked the way his life had turned out.
The Grammy-nominated rapper-turned-politician denied any bitter feelings about his conviction for the shooting—saying in 2022 that “I blame [the conviction] more on the lawyers that were advising [Diddy]. Because his lawyers were there to secure a ‘not guilty’ verdict by any means.” He even made periodic appearances with Diddy and performed with him as part of Diddy’s BET Lifetime Achievement Award Tribute. As recently as last November, Barrow joined the stage, arm around Diddy, to raise money for London charities Sickle Cell Society and Black Minds Matter.
Barrow now says he only played nice because he wanted to keep Diddy’s resources flowing into his country. That last performance was for “a charity event for impoverished youth,” he said defensively. “This was not someone who I vacationed with and he and I enjoyed this great intimate relationship of brotherhood,” he reiterated.
“This is someone who destroyed my life, and who I forgave,” he said, “for the better interest of Belize, because [Diddy] was in a position at that time to give scholarships [and] invest. I would not deny attempting to bring the investment to Belize and to bring the contributions to education to Belize.”
His primary objective in coming clean about what he really believes happened that fateful night in 1999 seems to have been, mostly, to distance himself from the shocking details in Combs’ sex trafficking indictment. “I have nothing to do with Sean Combs’ personal life—no interaction [on] that level,” Barrow said. “Everything was strictly on a professional level.”
