Rapper, Diddy, paid tribute to his ex Kim Porter in an emotional eulogy at her funeral which took place on Saturday in Columbus, Georgia.
The former model was found dead on Nov. 15 at age 47. She died after suffering from a bout of pneumonia but her exact cause of death is unknown
In an audio recording obtained by TMZ, Combs described his relationship with Porter and made a promise to their children: Christian, D’Lila Star and Jessie James his kids with Porter), Quincy (Porter’s son from a previous relationship whom Combs helped raise) and Justin and Chance (Combs’ children from other relationships).
Read the eulogy below
“I just want to say to my kids, Justin, Christian, D’Lila, Jessie, Chance and the other man in the house, Quincy: Your mother instilled in me this, and I pledge in front of everybody right now that I will always be there for you,” said Combs, 49, as the audience applauded at the public funeral inside Cascade Hills Church. “I will always take care of you.”
Combs added, “To the girls especially, we about to enter some different type of times. I want you to be able to talk to me about everything, and I mean everything, and I mean everything.”
“Some people in your life that’s gonna be irreplaceable,” Combs said. “Kim, we gonna miss you so much. But I ain’t gonna miss you too much because I’m not gonna let your voice inside of me stop talking. I know you like to talk to me a lot once you get on those rants, and I just want you to know I’m gonna be listening.”
Beginning the speech, Combs said, “Anybody who knows Kim, she’s just a person that you vibe with, you know? I can’t put our relationship into a certain box. She always told me, seriously, she felt like God sent … her here to help me out. I’d be like, ‘Girl, what are you talking about?'”
“I didn’t really understand how to love and, you know, we went through some circumstances, my mother and my family, where we didn’t have a big family and all of that,” Combs continued. “She just really started breaking down the exterior of any shell that I put up.”
Combs credited Porter with helping him shake off a stretch of depression. “There’s something important I need to say,” he started. “From the top of the year, I was going through a real dark time, and I was really depressed. And I don’t know why. I was getting older and … I just went through a dark, dark time.”
“And she would come over and make sure — even though we wasn’t together like that,” he added. “She was that type of person. It’s hard to love somebody when you ain’t with them. … She was just like, ‘Come on, Puff, you got to get up. You got to get up. You got to get up out of the bed. You got to get moving. You got to get up.'”
He then led the mourners in a call-and-response recitation of the word “up.” “So whenever you feeling down, you have to remember that,” Combs said. “As time went on, our relationship took so many different changes, from being boyfriend and girlfriend to being lovers to being best friends to being just straight-up homies, like somebody that you know you can count on. Somebody that has your back, you have their back.”
After making the pledge to their children, Combs concluded, “And we just love y’all, we appreciate y’all, appreciate the family. To all the words that I’m forgetting, to anything I’m forgetting to say, we love you, Kim. Thank you.”
