Amazon has stopped selling a “fabricated” memoir that was said to be authored by Sean “Diddy” Combs’ late longtime partner Kim Porter, even as the book became a best-seller because it claimed to chronicle the couple’s allegedly tumultuous relationship and to detail the alleged sexual exploits of the hip-hop mogul and other high-profile figures.
Amazon confirmed that “Kim’s Lost Words: A Journey for Justice, From the Other Side” is no longer available after the couple’s family reported it was a complete fabrication, The Guardian reported. The book was published by a self-described producer, author and investigative journalist named Chris Todd. After publishing the book under pseudonym Jamal T Millwood, Todd told the Associated Press that sources “very close to Kim and Sean Combs” provided him with a “flash drive, documents and tapes” from Porter that he eventually pieced together to create the purported memoir.
But Todd also told Rolling Stone that he wasn’t absolutely sure that Porter wrote the book: “If somebody put my feet to the fire and they said, ‘Life or death, is that book real?’ I have to say I don’t know. But it’s real enough to me.”
Porter’s family members and friends insisted the posthumous memoir was fake and filled with “fabricated (expletive) and offensive pages,” Porter’s ex-partner Al B. Sure! told Rolling Stone. The singer-songwriter sent cease and desist letters to Amazon and to Todd, according to documents obtained by Rolling Stone.
Porter and Combs’ children, Christian, 26, and Jessie and D’Lila, 17-year-old twins, as well as Quincy Brown, Porter’s son with Al B Sure!, whom Combs helped raise, posted a statement on Instagram saying: “We have seen so many hurtful and false rumors circulating about our parents, Kim Porter and Sean Combs’ relationship. As well as about our mom’s tragic passing.”
Porter died in 2018 of lobar pneumonia. When Todd initially published the book, it made little traction, and Rolling Stone noted it was “filled with numerous typos, factual inaccuracies and incredulous claims involving high-profile names.”
But after Combs’ Sept. 17 indictment on sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges, sales skyrocketed, Rolling Stone said. The $22 book briefly held Amazon’s no. 1 bestseller spot, outperforming new releases from Sally Rooney, Nicholas Sparks, Hillary Clinton and Ina Garten.
Now on Tuesday, Amazon confirmed that the book was no longer for sale on its online store.
“We were made aware of a dispute regarding this title and have notified the publisher,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “The book is not currently available for sale in our store.”
