Diddy is still paying Sting 5000 a day for sampling

Diddy is still paying Sting “$5,000 a day” for sampling his hit “Every Breath You Take” 26 years ago

Axelle/bauer-griffin | Movie Magic | Getty Images

Sean “Diddy” Combs is still paying the price for sampling The Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” and it doesn’t come cheap.

The mogul, who sampled the smash hit in 1997 for his “I’ll Be Missing You” tribute to the late Notorious BIG, tweeted this week that he still pays Police frontman Sting $5,000 a day in royalties.

Diddy made the reveal afterwards a clip from 2018 from “The Breakfast Club” was repeated on Twitter, in which Sting said the rapper was paying him $2,000 every day “for the rest of his life” to use the song.

Sting and Sean “Diddy” Combs at the 60th Annual GRAMMY Awards.

Kevin Mazur | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

“Nope,” Diddy wrote inside a quote tweet of the video. “5,000 a day. Love to my brother @Official Sting!”

It’s not the first time the payment deal between the two artists has made headlines. In 2003, Sting told Rolling Stone that when Elton John heard “I’ll Be Missing You,” he said to him, “You’re going to be a millionaire!”

“I used the proceeds to send some of my kids through college,” Sting said at the time. “And me and Diddy are still good friends.”

Even if Diddy writes a $5,000 check 365 times a year for a total of $1,825,000, it’s unlikely to put too much strain on his wallet.

Forbes estimated that he made $90 million in 2022 alone, thanks in part to his partnership with Ciroc Vodka, and in 2019 he put his net worth at $740 million.

DON’T MISS: Do you want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work and life? Sign up for our new newsletter!

Take this survey and tell us how you want to take your money and your career to the next level.