Christian Combs wants to follow in his father’s bespoke-heeled footsteps.
In the past two months, the 19-year-old son of rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs opened Dolce & Gabbana’s men’s fashion show, was named the face of the brand’s spring campaign and dropped a hip-hop single, “Love You Better.” It’s all part of his five-year plan.
“I wanna get a Grammy, go platinum, buy my mom a nice villa and get a Lamborghini,” he told Page Six.
Growing up, Christian simply wanted to be a rapper, but his mother, Kim Porter, encouraged him to dream bigger.
“My mom told me to tell people that I want to be an entrepreneur,” Christian recalled. “I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ She said that you do many things — you go into different fields and take over. When I found that out, I wanted to be an entrepreneur, too.”
In other words: like his dad. Diddy is reportedly worth $820 million thanks to ventures in music (Bad Boy Records), clothing (Sean John), TV (a stake in the Revolt TV network), and liquor (a promotional deal with Cîroc vodka), after starting out as a rapper and promoter.
Diddy, who was raised in Harlem, was just a toddler when he lost his own father, who was killed in a drug deal gone awry. Christian, whose parents split up in 2007, has had a very different upbringing, growing up in a $13.5 million mansion in Alpine, NJ, a $40 million home in Los Angeles and a $3.7 million place in East Hampton. He is the eldest of Diddy’s three children with Porter and has two half-siblings who have different mothers.
“We’re alike in a lot of ways, especially our work ethic,” Christian said of his relationship with his dad. “Every day, you gotta keep progressing. If you get nothing done, then you’re backtracking. [My dad] actually helped me with waking up early, he gets on me about that.”
He also seems to have inherited Diddy’s suave sense of style.
“I always dressed myself,” Christian said. “My style is flashy, simple and, at the same time, sexy and smooth.”
In 2017, his swagger on Instagram, where he now boasts more than a million followers, caught the eye of fashion megadesigners Dolce & Gabbana, who called him in to try out for their show. After flaunting his catwalk during casting calls, they gave him the modeling job. But he had some stage fright before his first show in Milan.
“In the first couple of seconds I was just nervous, and I didn’t know the pace,” Christian recalled. “But after that it kinda came naturally.”
Indeed, he was a complete pro during his Post photo shoot at Bo Peep at The Rag Trader, a cocktail lounge in Herald Square.
And Christian is just getting started with his modeling career. He was recently shot for Tommy Hilfiger, who named him a new face of Tommy Jeans.
“I like modeling,” he said, noting that he has his eyes on a prize. “I haven’t seen myself on billboards yet.”
In the meantime, Christian has put his admission to the University of Southern California on hold while he chases one of those entrepreneurial dreams — making music.
Christian’s first rap single, “Love You Better,” which features Chris Brown, focuses on a troubled relationship and has a brooding beat. He said he was inspired by his own dating life, but played coy when asked if he has a steady girlfriend: “It’s cool — everybody got somebody.”
One thing he’s more certain of: his place among Diddy’s five children.
“Maybe [my siblings] feel like they have pressure [to be his favorite],” Christian said. “I don’t. I may have already won.”
