T.D. Jakes is setting the record straight. After rumors went viral linking him to Sean “Diddy” Combs’ bombshell sex parties, the megachurch pastor finally pointed his finger at culprit behind the alleged smear campaign.
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Jakes claimed it was all fueled by 44,000 AI-generated bots designed to damage his reputation. According to him, this strategic move was a coordinated attack on successful Black figures.
“When the [rumors] first broke out, it was 44,000 bots that were released on me,” Jakes, 68, stated during an interview with John Hope Bryant. “The other thing it proved to me…is [that] it’s everybody, anybody. It goes along with the turf,” he said of being targeted by AI. “We have got to stop getting our information on TikTok. That’s a good place to start.”
In addition to placing blame on the army of chatbots, he made it abundantly clear that he had no involvement in Diddy’s baby oil and drug-filled “freak-off” parties. And when the non-denominational pastor launched his investigation into the digital smear campaign, he “discovered that 98% of them were all artificial intelligence-generated.”
Fake content and thumbnails began to circulate online, depicting the 68-year-old walking in handcuffs or in attendance at a Diddy party — none of which proved to be credible sources.
Seemingly relieved to have his name cleared, Jakes doubled-down on citing the rumors as baseless, arguing that had anything in that scandal been credible, the FBI would be all over it. It’s like when I had my health scare—within seconds, it was all over the world, you wouldn’t have to find it on Instagram, you wouldn’t have to find it on YouTube. You would find it on the 6 o’clock news.”
Diddy was found not guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering, although he was convicted on two counts of transporting people across state lines for the purpose of engaging in prostitution. Judge Arun Subramanian has officially scheduled his sentencing for October 3. Until then, the Bad Boy boss will remain behind bars.
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