“Hate Me Now” is a rap song made by rapper Nas, and guest staring controversial rapper P. Diddy/Sean Combs, released in 1999.
The song also contains that 2 different music videos that have also attracted controversy for the behind the scenes drama over them.
The music video featured both Nas and Sean as Jesus like figures, playing into the crucifixion of Jesus. The video had them being whipped, hit with stones, before ending with them having their hands and feet nailed to a cross.
Despite it being his idea, Sean, who was raised as a Catholic, felt uncomfortable with the religious imagery in the video and asked Nas’s manager to edit his parts out of the video. Nas’s manager responded that 1) this would be hard to do in such short notice and 2) pointed out that it was Sean’s idea for the music video and it’s content, but said that he will try and get it edited to only feature Nas’s portions of the video.
However disaster struck when in April, MTV accidently aired the original unedited version of the music video, featuring Sean’s scenes. Seasn was so angry about this that within MINUTES of it airing, he and 2 bodyguards drove all the way to the managers office while he was in a meeting, and viciously assaulted him, with Sean smashing a Champaign bottle over his head before then bashing him with a chair, before he and his bodyguards left him bruised and bloodied by stomping and kicking him while he was down.
This incident made news headlines, and Sean was looking to spend an estimate of 7 years in jail for the attack, however the charges were dropped by the manager asking for a public apology from Sean and a $5000k fine as compensation.
The original version of the music video was never aired again after this and was considered lost media, until an Instagram account uploaded the original version in 2022