On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 2, 2025, a throng of diehard Diddy fans, the majority of whom were in various states of undress, gathered outside the Manhattan federal courthouse to show love in a manner that was part lunatic, part deranged, and, depending on your loyalties, deeply symbolic. With the jury’s mixed verdict just delivered, feelings were running high, and so, apparently, was the baby oil.
A glossy celebration that nodded to one particularly notorious detail of the trial: the presence of baby oil at Diddy’s alleged private parties. Testimony has quoted the product as being discovered in mass during raids on his properties, and witnesses have described instances where aides were instructed to prep hotel rooms with industrial-sized quantities of the stuff. That detail seemed to make an impression on the public psyche, especially Diddy’s fans.
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In the audience was Brooklyn’s own Tes Harper, whose street name is “Oota on Go,” holding a tube of baby oil like she was wielding a brand of fealty. Bikini-clad women danced around him, supporters sprayed one another with sunshiny streams of the slick substance, and a couple of bikini bottoms were inadvertently tugged down: This was no buttoned-up courtroom affair.
The verdict was a mixed bag in itself. Diddy, as Mr. Spong is known, was cleared of the most serious charges, racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, but convicted on two counts of transportation for prostitution. Each of those convictions has a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
“Free Puff!” and “Bad Boy!” rumbled down the courthouse steps as supporters hailed the acquittal on the most damning accusations. Relieved, and an energy you couldn’t mistake. In their minds, Diddy had escaped the unthinkable, and they were going to celebrate it in a way that only they could.
There is something undeniably surreal about seeing a federal courthouse morph into a chaotic hybrid of block party and cultural critique. The baby oil, ridiculous on its face, was more than a gimmick, a slick, glistening token of camaraderie, a nudge at the circus-like atmosphere of the trial itself.
It was also a sign of an ever-blurring line between celebrity, scandal, and spectacle as it has played out in the modern age. For Diddy’s fans, however, the trial was more than a legal process; it was a performance, a narrative, a myth. And when the curtain fell, the applause took the shape of baby oil, bikinis, and all-out reveling.
Whether an act of loyalty or simply another surreal chapter in the coffee table book of hip-hop culture, the streets will never forget the day that justice was served with Johnson & Johnson.
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