CubanMustGo
08-30-2008, 10:54 AM
Just another gotdamned richer out of touch with reality ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2651051/Rapper-Sean-P.-Diddy-Combs-abandons-private-jet-over-high-fuel-prices.html
Along with the Cristal champagne, the pimped-up wheels, and the displays of bling, the private jet is the only way for any self-respecting artist to prove he has finally escaped the ghetto.
But as with so much of the rap world, the grim realities of life can all too often intrude: just as a man gets used to shuttling comfortably back and forth from America's East Coast to its West, soaring oil prices make the jet too expensive to fly.
Such is the problem now facing bestselling New York hiphop artist Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, who has grumbled that despite being worth an estimated £200 million, he can no longer afford to his trips by private jet to pursue his nascent acting career in Hollywood.
In a sign that rising oil prices are forcing even the super-rich to tighten their belts, Combs, previously known as Puff Daddy, has confessed that he has now been reduced to slumming it in first class on regular commercial airlines.
It may scarcely count as a privation by normal standards, but in the status conscious world of rap he might as well swap the Cristal for Spanish cava, or switch the limo for a moped.
As befits the style of a man who has made a living out of tellin' it how it is, Harlem-born Combs' take on the oil market's woes has not been exactly Wall Street.
"Gas prices are too motherf******g high," he ranted to fans in a recent YouTube video, which was shot by a member of his entourage as he wandered through an airport terminal.
"As you know, I do have my own jet, but I've been having to fly back and forth to LA pursuing my acting career. Now, if I'm flying back and forth twice a month, that's like $200,000, $250,000 round trip. I'm back on American Airlines."
While Combs' own particular dilemma is likely to be confined to the hiphop aristocracy and its considerable entourage of hangers-on, his point about soaring oil prices will resonate well outside the "hood".
With oil currently selling at around $118 per barrel, US sales of Hummers and other gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles have dropped dramatically as American motorists opt instead for European-style hatchbacks and cars that run on alternative fuels. The high petrol price is also blamed as a contributory factor to more than a quarter of a million job losses in the US and has become a top issue of the presidential election campaign, with both Barack Obama and John McCain pledging to make America energy independent.
Meanwhile Combs, who uses the name Diddy in America and whose business interests include Bad Boy Records and the clothing line Sean John, has proferred his own solution to the crisis.
"Give a shout out to all my Saudi Arabia brothers and sisters and all the brothers and sisters in all the countries that have oil – if you could please send me some oil for my jet, I would truly appreciate it," he said in the video, forlornly showing his first class boarding pass to the camera.
In case either Mr Obama or Mr McCain is anxious to court super-rich rappers as a voting base, he adds: "Tell whoever the next president is, we need to bring gas prices down.... I can't believe I'm flying commercial."
It is not the first time that the pop star has presented his own distinct take on the hardships of travel as a celebrity, which, in his case, involves an irksome network of commutes between a network of luxury homes in Manhattan, New Jersey, East Hampton, Miami Beach and Atlanta.
In a recent television interview, he suggested a brand-new chauffeur service purely reserved for drunken celebrities, and while on vacation in France, splashed out £10,000 on an second private jet to carry just his luggage from France to Rome.
French pilots had told him that a single plane's engines were not powerful to carry the weight of all his suitcases of clothes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2651051/Rapper-Sean-P.-Diddy-Combs-abandons-private-jet-over-high-fuel-prices.html
Along with the Cristal champagne, the pimped-up wheels, and the displays of bling, the private jet is the only way for any self-respecting artist to prove he has finally escaped the ghetto.
But as with so much of the rap world, the grim realities of life can all too often intrude: just as a man gets used to shuttling comfortably back and forth from America's East Coast to its West, soaring oil prices make the jet too expensive to fly.
Such is the problem now facing bestselling New York hiphop artist Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, who has grumbled that despite being worth an estimated £200 million, he can no longer afford to his trips by private jet to pursue his nascent acting career in Hollywood.
In a sign that rising oil prices are forcing even the super-rich to tighten their belts, Combs, previously known as Puff Daddy, has confessed that he has now been reduced to slumming it in first class on regular commercial airlines.
It may scarcely count as a privation by normal standards, but in the status conscious world of rap he might as well swap the Cristal for Spanish cava, or switch the limo for a moped.
As befits the style of a man who has made a living out of tellin' it how it is, Harlem-born Combs' take on the oil market's woes has not been exactly Wall Street.
"Gas prices are too motherf******g high," he ranted to fans in a recent YouTube video, which was shot by a member of his entourage as he wandered through an airport terminal.
"As you know, I do have my own jet, but I've been having to fly back and forth to LA pursuing my acting career. Now, if I'm flying back and forth twice a month, that's like $200,000, $250,000 round trip. I'm back on American Airlines."
While Combs' own particular dilemma is likely to be confined to the hiphop aristocracy and its considerable entourage of hangers-on, his point about soaring oil prices will resonate well outside the "hood".
With oil currently selling at around $118 per barrel, US sales of Hummers and other gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles have dropped dramatically as American motorists opt instead for European-style hatchbacks and cars that run on alternative fuels. The high petrol price is also blamed as a contributory factor to more than a quarter of a million job losses in the US and has become a top issue of the presidential election campaign, with both Barack Obama and John McCain pledging to make America energy independent.
Meanwhile Combs, who uses the name Diddy in America and whose business interests include Bad Boy Records and the clothing line Sean John, has proferred his own solution to the crisis.
"Give a shout out to all my Saudi Arabia brothers and sisters and all the brothers and sisters in all the countries that have oil – if you could please send me some oil for my jet, I would truly appreciate it," he said in the video, forlornly showing his first class boarding pass to the camera.
In case either Mr Obama or Mr McCain is anxious to court super-rich rappers as a voting base, he adds: "Tell whoever the next president is, we need to bring gas prices down.... I can't believe I'm flying commercial."
It is not the first time that the pop star has presented his own distinct take on the hardships of travel as a celebrity, which, in his case, involves an irksome network of commutes between a network of luxury homes in Manhattan, New Jersey, East Hampton, Miami Beach and Atlanta.
In a recent television interview, he suggested a brand-new chauffeur service purely reserved for drunken celebrities, and while on vacation in France, splashed out £10,000 on an second private jet to carry just his luggage from France to Rome.
French pilots had told him that a single plane's engines were not powerful to carry the weight of all his suitcases of clothes.