P. Diddy SHOCKED To Discover This Secret About His 3rd-Great-Grandfather


Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is back with his PBS show Finding Your Roots. If you’ve never seen the show, the concept is pretty straight-forward. Gates interviews a celebrity figure and reveals to them their genealogical history.

Popular episodes of the show (now in it’s third season) uncovered that Bill Maher and Bill O’Reilly are distant cousins, Cory Booker’s mixed-raced ancestry is nothing new, and Ben Affleck’s family definitely owned slaves.

In a recent episode though, rapper/designer/businessman/boat-owner Sean “Diddy” Combs (also known as Puff Daddy) found out some shocking information in his own family tree. When Gates discusses the mogul’s ancestry, he points out that Diddy’s third-great-grandfather was actually a free Black American.

diddy daughters
Diddy with his three daughters, via Facebook

“This Wasn’t Typical of the Black Experience”

When Gates tells Diddy that his great-great-great-great-grandfather, Robert Allsop, lived freely in Maryland, Diddy shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Rightfully so. During the mid-1800s very few Black people were considered free. (Slavery wasn’t abolished in Maryland until 1854.) Those who were free typically lived in the North, and were either recently freed by slave owners, who found slavery was no longer profitable, nor morally just.




Yet, Puff Daddy’s third-great-grandfather likely wasn’t a part of either category. Gates goes on to explain that Allsop was born into freedom, as both of his parents were too. In fact, the freed status dates back at least four generations from Allsop’s parents.

Sitting across from Gates, Diddy takes in the news, reading through the various documents presented to him.

“It makes me feel kind of conflicted that my family was free, and there were so many other families that weren’t” Diddy quietly says.

According to Gates, at least 90 percent of the African American people he’s interviewed for the project didn’t have any free ancestors.

Freed Blacks Become the Majority

As slave men and women began attaining their freedom, various laws were passed in all-White governments. Scared and intimidated by the large population of freed Black Americans, the all-white governments crafted strict legislature designed to limit this newly found freedom.

Diddy’s third-great-grandfather was victim to one of the many laws. Diddy carefully reads aloud an October 1865 newspaper clipping about Allsop, who was imprisoned on the accusation that he was a runaway slave — despite the fact that he was indeed free his entire life.

“I can’t imagine what it must have felt like for him to be locked up…and to be innocent,” Diddy states wearily.