Diddy Reveals He Pays Sting $5,000 Per Day for Sampling "Every Breath You Take" Without His Permission

Every breath Diddy takes, every move he makes, there’s one bond he won’t be able to break — he’ll be payin’ Sting. 

Diddy has revealed that he pays legendary rocker Sting a whopping $5,000 per day for sampling The Police's song Every Breath You Take, which Sting wrote, without permission. In 2018, The Police singer-songwriter told a surprised Charlamagne Tha God on The Breakfast Club that Diddy pays him $2,000 a day after Sting won 100 percent of the song’s royalties. That’s already a good chunk of change, but that was in 2018.

In the interview, the 71-year-old musician shared that the producer asked for permission to sample the single only after it had been released. "We're very good friends now," he adds. "It was a beautiful version of that song."

On Wednesday, Diddy shared resurfaced footage from the interview on Twitter and took the opportunity to correct Sting's figure. "Nope. 5K a day," he wrote. "Love to my brother @OfficialSting!" 

I'll Be Missing You served as a tribute to The Notorious B.I.G., who died in 1997 at the age of 24. Faith Evans — his former wife and mother to his 26-year-old son, C.J. Wallace, accompanied Diddy for the track alongside the R&B group 112. After its release, the track went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart and earn Diddy awards at the 1997 Billboard Music Awards ceremony for top rap artist and top rap song, reported People.

It's unclear how much Diddy has paid Sting over the years, but in a 2003 interview with Rolling Stone, The Police frontman said he'd taken enough money from the rapper to put some of his six children through college.

"Those guys just take your s**t, put it on a record and deal with the legality later," he said when asked how Diddy came about sampling Every Breath You Take. "Elton John told me, 'You gotta hear ["I'll Be Missing You'"], you're gonna be a millionaire,'" he added. "I said, 'I am a millionaire!' He said, 'You're gonna be a millionaire twice over!' I put a couple of my kids through college with the proceeds, and me and P. Diddy are good pals still."

The rapper most recently reflected on his friendship with The Notorious B.I.G in a tweet shared on the 26th anniversary of his death in March. "There will NEVER be another. The GREATEST RAPPER OF ALL TIME," wrote Diddy. "Today we celebrate and honor you king. Love and miss you!!"

"The person behind these rhymes, which could be so gritty and sometimes harsh and sometimes explicit — he was occasionally all of those things. But for the most part, he was just a really cool, lovable, funny person that most people loved being around," Evans reflected on the late rapper's legacy while speaking to People in March 2022.