Are Diddy and Jennifer Lopez Friends? A Lawsuit Includes Allegations About Their 1999 Shooting Drama

Actress and singer Jennifer Lopez and rapper-businessman Sean “Diddy” Combs, who dated off and on from 1999 to 2001, have gone from lovers to friends, apparently. But their relationship made headlines again in March 2024 amid new allegations regarding a 1999 shooting in New York City.

In an amended lawsuit filed in a New York federal district court on March 24, 2024, producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones Jr. alleged that Diddy said he was responsible for the shooting and that Jennifer passed him the gun, according to USA Today.

Diddy and Jennifer have certainly seemed friendly in recent years. In 2015, they shared a laugh at an American Music Awards afterparty, and Diddy later told Power 105.1 FM’s The Breakfast Club that he and J.Lo were cool. “Me and Jennifer, we gotta, people gonna be friends, man, people gonna grow, and, you know, any of my exes, they smile, and they’re happy to see me,” he said on the radio show, according to E! News.

The former couple reunited again at a 2018 afterparty for her then-ending Las Vegas residency, per Entertainment Tonight. Photos from the party show Jennifer and Diddy hugging and smiling as they chatted. The rapper also shared a warm greeting with baseball star Alex Rodriguez, who was Jennifer’s boyfriend at the time.

Then, in 2021, Diddy posted a throwback Instagram photo, now removed, of himself and J.Lo holding hands, per People.

Amid speculation that there was an agenda behind that post — Jennifer had broken up with Alex and was starting to see Ben Affleck again — Diddy said the #tbt pic was guileless. “It wasn’t no trolling involved, that’s just my friend,” he told Vanity Fair later that year. “And I don’t have nothing to say about her relationship or her life.”

Despite the former couple’s apparent friendliness these days, it sounds like their relationship took a toll on Jennifer. “It was the first time I was with someone who wasn’t faithful,” she told Vibe in 2003 (per Entertainment Weekly). “I was in this relationship with [Diddy] where I was totally crying, crazy, and going nuts. It really took my whole life in a tailspin.”

Of his alleged infidelity, she said, “I never caught him, but I just knew. He’d say he was going to a club for a couple of hours and then never come back that night. … I had to think, do I want to be home with kids in 10 years wondering where somebody is at three in the morning?”

In 1999, Diddy, Jennifer, bodyguard Anthony “Wolf” Jones, and rapper Jamal “Shyne” Barrow were involved in a disagreement at a New York City club that escalated to gunfire, injuring three people, according to Forbes. Diddy and Jennifer were both arrested, but the charges against Jennifer were quickly dropped. Diddy and Wolf went to trial over gun possession charges and were acquitted. Shyne was sentenced to charges including first-degree assault and served nearly nine years for his charges.

But in a March 2024 amendment to a lawsuit filed against Diddy the previous month, Lil Rod claimed the rap mogul “shared that he was responsible for the shooting in the nightclub in New York City with rapper Shyne” and that Jennifer “carried the firearm into the club for him and passed him the gun after he got into an altercation with another individual,” USA Today reports.

Jennifer seems not to have commented on these claims so far. Meanwhile Diddy, through his attorney, denied all of Lil Rod’s allegations against him after the original February 2024 lawsuit filing — which included allegations of sexual abuse. “Lil Rod is nothing more than a liar who filed a $30 million lawsuit shamelessly looking for an undeserved payday,” Diddy’s attorney said in a statement in February 2024, per USA Today. “His reckless name-dropping about events that are pure fiction and simply did not happen is nothing more than a transparent attempt to garner headlines.”