Lil’ Kim may not be feeling Diddy or Nicki Minaj, who Diddy is
reportedly managing, but the rapper and hip-hop exec says he’s still cool with
the Queen Bee. Kim’s recent outbursts about the Young Money Barbie and the Bad
Boy mogul have been grabbing headlines, but Diddy isn’t letting the star’s
words get to him, saying he still has mad love for Kim.

“I want to say I love Lil’ Kim, man,” Diddy told the BBC’s
Tim Westwood on Friday (June 11). “I’m sorry that she’s mad. I never would
have thought that by me working with another artist that she would take it the
wrong way. But if she’s taking it the wrong way, it ain’t meant like that.
Nicki never did anything to her.”

Kim has sounded off about Minaj in a variety of outlets, including
a recent interview posted on ThisIs50.com. “For the last year, she’s been
subliminally taking shots at me, subliminally taking shots at the other girls
in the industry. I mean, come on, we read that interview where she said, ‘Oh,
being that the other rap chicks in the game ain’t got sh– to do right now,
when I’m by the pool, they can feed me grapes,’ I remember that sh–,” Kim
told the website. “The last thing she did that was very subliminal, ‘Oh,
did I kill the Queen?’ and Puffy is sitting right next to her vibing with that
bullsh–. Come on, we ain’t stupid. It’s obvious that she likes my music and
that she’s trying to mimic what I’m doing, she’s subliminally busting
shots.”

Kim also talked about her feelings to Philadelphia radio
personality Kendra G. “All females that come in the game, we all need to
stick together, and I always try my best to embrace them. But what happens is
when you come into the game and realize that I’m not going away and my fans are
still here and they can’t just step over me. They can’t just step on me and
then they’re kinda like, they get upset and then they don’t want to be my
friend anymore and I think that’s really childish, you know what I’m saying?
It’s stupid because all I ask for is to be respected — pay homage at the end of
the day.”

While Diddy maintained his love and respect for Kim, he went on to
defend Minaj, insisting that the Queens hitmaker has shown the Queen Bee
nothing but respect.

“She ain’t trying to swagger-jack or say nothing negative
about her. I just think that Kim needs to just understand that Nicki as a whole
has always been respectful of her and Nicki’s not trying to be her,” Diddy
said. “I ain’t gonna make no apologies for working with Nicki Minaj. [She
is] somebody that’s never said anything negative about Kim and just really has
always, in my eyes, has paid homage to Kim. She’s a different MC. They don’t
even talk about the same thing. If you’re like a connoisseur of MCs and you a
specialist — like what Kim has talked about and what Nicki talks about — they
don’t talk about the same things.”

The mogul also suggested that Kim’s vocal attacks on the
“Massive Attack” rapper are a ploy to build buzz as she prepares to
drop a new project.

“Kim is gonna be a MC and MCs when they coming back out a lot
of times they like to talk crazy and do what they do, ” he said. “At
the end of the day, everybody respects Lil’ Kim for being the Queen Bee.”

Diddy may be cooking up some heat in the lab with Nicki Minaj, but
despite their budding professional relationship, the hip-hop Bad Boy continues
to maintain his support for both MCs. “We riding with Nicki and we still
riding with Kim,” he said. “We love and respect the days and the
history that we’ve had with Lil’ Kim. It ain’t no beef.” (Via MTV News)