Last week, Diddy erased his entire Instagram account, including his apology video to Cassie, sparking backlash. Among the critics is ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, who called out the music executive for the “foolish” move. On the June 25 episode of the Stephen A. Smith Show, he said, “You deleted all the videos from your Instagram account including the one I just showed. If you had a million photos, if you had a million videos, and you decided to delete 999,999, that’s the one you should’ve kept up if you’re sincere.”
Smith continued, “And I know that you’ve been taking a lot of hits, and there’s been shrapnel of criticism all over the place aimed in your direction. Not that it wasn’t deserved … Although one could argue, the ex that you hit had to deal with a hell of a lot more than you had to deal with in terms of the criticism.” He couldn’t fathom how Diddy or his PR team thought deleting the Cassie apology video was a good idea when public perception was already against him. “Delete everything else — not that,” he insisted. “Don’t you want people to know that you were contrite? That you were incredibly sorry? That you have profound regret for the egregious actions that you were caught on camera committing?”
Smith added, “By deleting the video, you throw all of that out the window. The possibility of the very few people that would ever believe that really having a reason to continue to believe you.” Fans noticed Diddy had cleared his IG account, including the apology video, which was in response to footage showing him physically abusing Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel. The March 2016 video, shared by CNN in May, showed Diddy dragging Cassie across the floor of an L.A. hotel elevator bank.
In the apology video, Diddy expressed his remorse, saying, “It’s so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life, but sometimes you got to do that. I was f—ed up. I mean, I hit rock bottom. But I make no excuses. My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I’m disgusted. I was disgusted then when I did it, I’m disgusted now.”
Cassie accused Diddy of rape, physical abuse, and more in a lawsuit last November. The two, who dated from 2007 to 2018, settled the dispute in less than 24 hours, with undisclosed terms. Diddy has also faced several other accusations of sexual misconduct, which he has denied.