Did Diddy use Biggie's money to pay for latter's funeral? Late rapper's estate manager speaks up on allegations made in the Netflix docuseries

Netflix's explosive four-part docuseries about Sean "Diddy" Combs included several bombshell allegations about the rapper's relationship with The Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls, who was signed to Combs' Bad Boy Records. One of the most shocking claims was made by Bad Boy co-founder Kirk Burrowes, who claimed that Diddy wanted to bill Biggie's funeral costs to his estate following his death in 1997.

For the uninitiated, Biggie Smalls was killed in a drive-by shooting in LA on March 9, 1997. This occurred six months after another drive-by shooting took the life of fellow rapper and rival Tupac Shakur. Biggie's funeral was held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on March 18, 1997, and the funeral procession through the BK streets was attended by countless fans.

In the new docuseries, titled Sean Combs: The Reckoning, Burrowes claimed that Diddy wanted to make Biggie's funeral a "recoupable charge" to the late rapper, saying:

“Sean said, ‘We’re gonna do the biggest funeral for Biggie that New York has ever seen.' We start to put that together, he starts to see the price. He says, ‘We’re gonna do the biggest funeral, but Biggie’s gonna have to pay for this funeral.'”

This claim was later denied by Wayne Barrow, who worked alongside Biggie's mother to manage the late rapper's estate. On December 4, 2025, Loren Lorosa of The Breakfast Club took to her X account to reveal that she spoke to Barrow following the docuseries' release, adding that Barrow claimed Diddy and Bad Boy Records paid for Biggie's funeral in its entirety.

Lorosa further wrote that Barrow told her he and Burrowes planned Biggie's funeral together, adding:

"The allegations from the doc “Sean Combs: The Reckoning” .. that Diddy/ Bad Boy used Biggies money to pay for his own funeral .. Wayne alleges .. are false. Wayne Barrow says He officiated the funeral and was also planning it along with Kirk Burrowes (featured in the doc, who made the original claim) and the Bad Boy staff."

In her post, Lorosa also added that Wayne Barrow told her he never found any funeral costs billed to any of Biggie's royalty statements, which he reviewed with the late rapper's mother, Voletta Wallace, till her death in February 2025.

"Wayne Barrow says Bad boy/ Diddy paid for everything and at no point was there any indication in any royalty statement of Biggies that reflected any funeral cost. Wayne says him and Ms. Wallace reviewed every royalty statement that came together up until the day she passed .. funeral expenses never came up."

Diddy was accused of trying to alter Biggie's recording contract after his death

This is not the only accusation that Diddy faced regarding The Notorious B.I.G. in Netflix's new documentary, which was executively produced by 50 Cent. Bad Boys co-founder Kirk Burrowes also claimed that the hip-hop mogul coerced him to change some of the terms of Biggie's recording contract after the rapper's death to make it more favorable for their label.

Burrowes claimed that Diddy told him to replace the middle pages of the contract with the new terms, and following his refusal, fired him from Bad Boy Records. For the uninformed, Burrowes was fired from the company in 1997, the same year that Biggie was murdered.

“Sean wanted me to change the agreement to more favorable terms for Bad Boy, and [Wallace’s] family and mother would not know. And since [Wallace] had signed the agreement, [Combs] wanted those changes to come from out of the center of the agreement and have those pages replaced with the other terms. I said, ‘That’s not right. I’m not doing it,'" he said in the documentary.

Elsewhere in the documentary, Kirk Burrowes also alleged that Combs took over a 1997 Rolling Stone cover that was initially offered to Biggie, claiming that he needed the cover to promote his new debut album, No Way Out.

Meanwhile, Wayne Barrow addressed these claims in his conversation with Loren Lorosa. The Breakfast Club host wrote on X that Barrow told her there "weren’t Biggie & Diddy contract beefs at the time of Biggies passing." He added that he couldn't speak about the Rolling Stone cover but claimed that "there was never a Rolling Stone Cover presented to Biggies team that he’s aware of."

The docuseries implied that Diddy was associated with Tupac and Biggie's murders

Additionally, the second episode of the four-part series heavily implied that Sean "Diddy" Combs was associated with the deaths of both Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. The docuseries covered the rising tensions between the East Coast and West Coast rappers, fronted by Combs' Bad Boy Records and Suge Knight's Death Row Records, respectively.

For context, Biggie was signed to Bad Boy, while Shakur was signed to Death Row. The docuseries alleged that Duane "Keffe D" Davis, currently awaiting trial for Shakur's murder, was contracted by Diddy to kill Shakur and Knight for $1 million. In the episode, Kirk Burrowes also said, "I think that Sean now in my mature mind had a lot to do with the death of Tupac."

According to USA Today, he further said that Combs pushed for Biggie to go to Los Angeles to promote his album in 1997 despite the unrest following Tupac's death. Burrowes also alleged that Biggie was unwilling to go to LA but went anyway after Combs convinced him. The rapper was fatally shot during that trip, with Burrowes claiming that Combs "ushered Biggie to his death."

Sean Combs has repeatedly denied allegations of being involved in the murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. He is currently serving his sentence after being found guilty of two counts of "transportation to engage in prostitution" following his s*x trafficking trial this year.

Edited by Juhi Marzia