Anyone judging the presidential campaign via celebrity endorsements would have had quite the shock this morning, awaking to the news that Donald Trump won the election. Again.
Kamala Harris’s roster of A-list supporters was as extensive and well publicised as it was starry. Beyoncé spoke at her Houston rally, J Lo gave a rousing speech in Las Vegas. Taylor Swift declared her allegiance on Instagram.
Meanwhile, Trump’s fan club is decidedly less celeb-heavy. His most notable A-list supporters are Dennis Quaid, Mel Gibson, Joe Rogan and Hulk Hogan.
But did it even matter? The biggest celebrities in the world turned out for Harris and in the end it meant nothing. Donald Trump claimed victory in the early hours of the morning and has since been officially announced as the winner of the presidential election.
In fact, Harris’s celeb-studded endorsements may have even backfired against her. Anyone trawling through the comment sections of political news sites and celebrity pages on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter yesterday likely saw a recurring theme. Kamala Harris being linked to Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, the ultra-connected rap mogul now on trial for racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has plead not guilty to these charges in court and denies all wrongdoing.
“Picked the wrong time to get endorsements from Hollyweird and the P Diddy crew,” read one comment on a news site’s Instagram post about the election.
Another user wrote on X: “They literally just carted out every single person on the Diddy tapes to endorse Kamala — like, in sequential order.”
These views are part of a conspiracy theory fuelled by Trump fans who believe that Kamala Harris’s team have obtained incriminating “tapes” of information linking certain celebrities to P Diddy. J Lo once dated P Diddy and Beyoncé has been pictured with him, but there is no proof that any of these celebrities engaged in anything illegal or untoward with the disgraced music producer. Conspiracy theorists wrongly believe that celebrities were forced to back Harris’s campaign so that she wouldn’t release the tapes.
As one X user claimed: “Every time I see a celebrity who is fired up for Kamala, I can’t help but wonder if they’re doing it because they need whatever tapes they’re on, from Diddy and Epstein, to stay hidden.”
Last month, two altered images of P Diddy and Kamala Harris did the rounds on social media, only for fact checkers to publicly denounce them as altered. One image showed P Diddy with his ex-girlfriend Misa Hylton at a red carpet event, but the image was photoshopped to have Harris’s face superimposed upon Hylton’s body. Another showed Harris and her ex-boyfriend Montel Williams at an event together, with Williams’s face swapped out for P Diddy’s.
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Meanwhile, Donald Trump has been physically pictured with both P Diddy and Jeffrey Epstein multiple times in non-doctored images, something which Trump fans are refusing to acknowledge as part of their ‘Kamala-Diddy theory’.
The only public proof of any real interaction between Harris and P Diddy comes from one tweet in which she thanks him for supporting her 2020 election campaign, where she was campaigning to be Joe Biden’s VP. “Thank you, @Diddy, for hosting this town hall last night,” she wrote on X. “There’s a lot at stake for our communities right now, and it’s critical we bring to the forefront how coronavirus is perpetuating racial inequality and health disparities.”
The conspiracy theory was given even more weight when it was parroted by Donald Trump’s son, Donald Jr, on his Triggered podcast earlier this week. “We’re seeing unprecedented amounts of pay-for-play again,” the businessman claimed on his podcast. “Again, none of this is organic. It’s a paid influencer operation. Know that. The celebrities who aren’t getting paid are getting probably paid in another way because they’re either on an Epstein list or a Diddy party list or both.
“We all saw that, how magically Diddy gets busted, and all of a sudden everyone’s endorsing the Democrat, just out of nowhere,” he added.
According to PoliticsJOE producer Ed Campbell, this is all part of what he calls the “alternative reality” of Trump fans, who only accept pieces of information that feed their pre-existing beliefs.
“I think the real difference between Democrats and Republicans is that they just don't agree on any facts,” Campbell says. “Even just down to who won the election in 2020. That is a disputed fact between Democrats and Republicans.”
As a result, Campbell says that Trump fans introduce “alternative facts” which suit their agenda, regardless of actual proof. “It speaks to this tactic of creating an alternative reality. And that's how they speak to their base. If you're fully on-message, you fully understand everything that they're talking about, and if anyone kind of differs from that, they're the ‘other’ and not to be trusted.”
But as for whether it actually swayed the election or discounted Harris’s powerful celebrity endorsements, Campbell is unconvinced. “If this moved the needle at all, I'd be really surprised. This is aimed at a really specific part of the Trump quota.
“If you believe this and repeat it, you’re probably a conspiracy-minded voter already. You probably believe that Hillary Clinton was running a paedophile ring from within a pizza shop in DC, but you also believe that the tape of Epstein saying he's Trump's closest friend is total fake news.
“All this does is reinforce the belief of a really red pilled Trump voter who hates Kamala anyway. It will have appealed to that portion of the Trump base.”
Regardless of whether it had any impact, the conspiracy theory is still gaining traction, even now the results are in. Harris has yet to acknowledge the disinformation campaign and will speak to her supporters about the election result later today.
