Baller Alert Entertainment & Lifestyle
Former Bad Boy member Shyne is opening up and sharing unheard details about the nightclub shooting from 1999.
On June 1, 2001, Shyne, whose real name is Jamal Michael Barrow, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after his alleged involvement in a Manhattan nightclub shooting that left three people injured. Shyne was charged and convicted of attempted murder, assault, and reckless endangerment. Sean Diddy Combs was also allegedly involved in the shooting; he was arrested but acquitted at trial of charges.
Shyne has since left the rap game and is running for office in Belize. Now, the 41-year-old is sharing his piece about the incident on FatJoe’s podcast The Fat Joe Show.
“I was in fear for my life,” Shyne began. “Scar who was the instigator … I know Scar from Brooklyn,” Shyne said of another man who was allegedly the reason the shooting happened. “Those are my guys. I didn’t have a problem with him; that wasn’t my beef. That was Puff’s issue. They had a problem with Puff for whatever reason. Scar, Nino, and the entire Brooklyn crowd was in Club New York. I seen them, it was all love, but when they started arguing with Puff … I know what these Brooklyn guys are capable of. I know what Scar is capable of. I know what Nino is capable of. I know what happens once these arguments start. Once they start, it becomes a problem — a serious problem. Once he starts talking crazy, yeah, I became afraid for my life. Once he says it’s about to happen, then it’s about to happen.”
He continued: “I seen somebody reach for a gun, and I reached for my weapon, and I defended my friends and myself. Cause once he starts firing, once whoever else pulls out a gun and starts firing, it doesn’t stop there.” Joe then asked why Shyne decided to pull out his gun. “I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six. I think for [Puff], he’s a corporation. And he’s thinking about the corporation. So obviously, something like that affects the corporation terribly. At the time, I was thinking life or death. We didn’t have an opportunity for him to say, ‘Thank you for saving my life, saving Jennifer’s life … for saving all our lives.’ Cause he was thinking about the corporation. Did I jump the gun? Absolutely not.” Shyne said him, Diddy, and Diddy’s then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez left the scene.
While the matter ended up tarnishing the Diddy and Shyne’s friendship, the pair eventually settled their issues. “Puff apologized, he did apologize to me for that when we met in Paris,” Shyne continued. “He did say that he could have handled it better, but he was under a lot of pressure from the lawyers to throw me under the bus. That’s exactly what Benjamin Brafman, Johnnie Cochran, and the entire “Dream Team” that was their position. Cause Puff is a corporation, he’s a half-a-billion dollar corporation. So nobody is gonna sacrifice the corporation for anyone else.”
