You ever have a Halloween costume so good you get a cease and desist from a Hollywood studio? It’s rare, but it happened to Sean “Diddy” Combs. Last year, Diddy dressed as such an accurate Joker (in the style of Heath Ledger’s take on the character for Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy) that Warner Bros. took issue with it, the rapper revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
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“Last year, I was the Joker, and I actually got a letter from the studio that I can no longer be the Joker,” Diddy explained. “They said it broke their trademark, that I did it too good. I swear I have this letter. I swear to God. … From Warner Bros.” After Kimmel encouraged him to dress as Joker again, Diddy addressed WB directly: “So tomorrow… Warner Bros. lawyers, can you see me? Put this camera on right here. The head of legal: Tomorrow, watch what I do.”
Diddy also addressed the situation on Instagram, holding what he claimed to be the legal papers he was sent to stop him from dressing up as the Clown Prince of Crime. “To the motherfucker that took all this time… to tell me not to be the Joker, I wanted to tell you, you win, I’m not gonna be the Joker. Just because your ass had enough time to fuck up my motherfucking Halloween,” he said, before teasing his fans to “stay tuned.”
In this case, you either die a villain or live long enough to see yourself become a hero, because Diddy’s 2023 costume was an incredibly detailed Nolan-verse Batman. Like, complete with a Nolan-verse Batmobile and seemingly filmed in the same big warehouse that was featured in The Dark Knight. And Warner Bros. really shouldn’t have pissed this guy off, because now he’s doing a whole skit about ending the actors strike.
“I’m tired of mediocrity. Of the shortcuts. Of the greed. Of empty suits telling us that we don’t deserve more,” Diddy’s “Darkest Knight” muses in a growly voice-over. He then assaults a nameless “studio exec” threatening him with violence so that he’ll “say the strike is over.” It’s sort of a strange and simplistic understanding of how a strike would work, but his heart seems to be in the right place? You can see for yourself how the Darkest Knight saves the day, below: