Real Pic of Diddy, Trump, and Melania?

Dozens of photos from a 2005 event at Mar-a-Lago honoring Diddy are publicly available.

Since Sean "Diddy" Combs' former chef first sued for sexual harassment in 2017, numerous women and men have filed with their own lawsuits against the American rapper. On Sept. 12, 2024, a grand jury filed an indictment against Combs for sex trafficking and racketeering. As of late September 2024, authorities were holding Combs in federal detention without bail.

In the wake of these lawsuits, photos of Combs with various celebrities, politicians, and other famous figures have gone viral. While some – including several of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris – are fake, many are not.

One photo appearing to depict Combs with former U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, went viral across multiple accounts on multiple platforms.

P Diddy, Donald Trump, Melania Trump (2005)
byu/Live_Carpenter_1262 inpics

The photo is real; it is publicly available on Getty Images and was not AI-generated or digitally altered in any way. Photographer Johnny Nunez took the photo on March 11, 2005. The caption of the photo is as follows:

"Art for Life" Gala Honoring Sean "P. Diddy" Combs Hosted by Russell Simmons and Kimora Lee Simmons

Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Donald Trump and Melania Trump (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

Furthermore, the "Art for Life" gala honoring Combs, where photographers snapped this photo – along with dozens of others – took place at Trump's resort, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida. The Trumps married less than two months prior to the time Nunez took the photo.

In sum, because the viral photo is publicly available on Getty Images and was not AI-generated or digitally manipulated in any way, we rate this claim as true.

Taija PerryCook is a Seattle-based journalist who previously worked for the PNW news site Crosscut and the Jordan Times in Amman.