“He emitted a chaotic energy”: Mark Ronson recalls feeling “unnerved” by Diddy years before Cassie allegations emerged

Mark Ronson said he had felt uneasy around Sean “Diddy” Combs long before the hip-hop figure faced allegations of abuse. In his memoir, Night People: How to Be a DJ in ’90s New York City, the producer described the atmosphere Combs created within New York’s nightlife in the mid-1990s.

“For all the gigs I played for Puff, he probably spoke five sentences to me,” he shared, “But even to me, the DJ, he emitted a chaotic energy that left me both starstruck and deeply unnerved,” Ronson wrote,

referring to Combs by his then-stage name, Puff Daddy. Mark Ronson explained that it quickly became “abundantly clear” that Combs held enormous influence over the city’s club scene.

“He made people’s careers — playing gigs for him certainly helped mine — and his disapproval meant a certain kind of exile,” he explained.

According to Mark Ronson, Combs was never seen primarily as a performer but rather as a figure whose willpower could shape the industry.

“Nobody thought of Puffy as a rapper, only as a force who could will anything into existence, no matter the cost,” he shared.

At the events organised by Diddy, the DJ said he witnessed a cross-section of high-profile guests: Muhammad Ali, Martha Stewart, Denzel Washington, and Sarah Ferguson among them. “Everyone went.” Looking back, Mark Ronson emphasized that

“back then, the only controversy surrounding Puff was around the music.”

Mark Ronson revealed how Diddy, vinyl, and New York nightlife shaped his career:

Before his name was attached to Grammy and Oscar-winning hits for Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson was already a familiar figure in New York’s clubs. In the 1990s, he became one of the most in-demand DJs in the city, a role he has now revisited in his memoir Night People, the BBC reported.

A natural night owl, Mark Ronson built his sets around crates of vinyl, keeping crowds alive with sudden bursts of AC/DC or Busta Rhymes.

“I could walk into any room and, almost like the Terminator, scan the crowd and be like, ‘I know what the first three records are,’” he shared.

The book deliberately stops short of his later global success, something that initially puzzled publishers.

“They were like, ‘Oh right, so you want to write about the time before the thing we know you for?’” he recalled.

But Ronson stood firm, describing the project as a tribute to a lost era and a late friend, DJ Blu Jemz, who died in 2018.

“It’s arguably the last time New York was the apex of hip-hop both creatively and commercially,” he wrote,

citing artists such as A Tribe Called Quest, Biggie Smalls, Wu-Tang, and Lil’ Kim who were part of the city’s nightly soundtrack.

At the center of it all was Sean “Diddy” Combs. Mark Ronson said Combs played a decisive role in his early career, even tipping him $100 with his number written on it before booking him for star-studded events.

“It’s undeniable that the way he picked me for certain gigs elevated my star,” Ronson acknowledged,

though he also called the current accusations against Combs “horrific.” Mark Ronson added that despite DJing for Combs for several years, their personal exchanges were minimal.

“In the five years I DJ’d for him, I doubt he spoke more than five sentences to me, he was mostly out there dancing, and I knew if he was dancing, no-one was gonna yell at me,” shared Ronson.

Lady Gaga car crash story showed how Mark Ronson turned childhood tension into calm:

Mark Ronson traced his sensitivity as a producer back to his earliest experiences at home. The London-born DJ, son of jewellery designer Ann Dexter-Jones and music publisher Laurence Ronson, grew up surrounded by celebrities. Their home in St John’s Wood often hosted names like Keith Moon and Robin Williams.

“My parents had crazy parties all the time, fifty or 60 slightly cracked people, smoking, drinking, having a great time,” he shared.

But Mark Ronson said the aftermath of those parties carried a different weight. He wrote of “angry crescendos and heavy silences” from his parents’ room, which created in him a “constant watchfulness” that would later influence his approach to music. DJing, he explained, became a way to regain control.

“It wasn’t always the greatest way to grow up for a kid, and there was something about the DJ booth that was incredibly comforting. It’s like I’m an army of one. I make all the rules. It’s a refuge, in a way.”

That instinct to manage volatile situations followed him into production. He recalled how it played out during sessions for Lady Gaga’s 2016 album Joanne. In the documentary Five Foot Two, the singer crashed into his car before entering the studio, flustered and apologetic. Ronson diffused the tension with humor, telling her,

“If you have a problem, I wish you’d just say it to my face instead of my bumper.”

He said the moment reflected his broader role in the studio:

“Sometimes we’d slam the door and there’d be 20 people on the other side taking pictures. So my role is just to shut out the outside world [and] make the artist feel relaxed and comfortable at all times. Even when they’ve trashed your car.”

Mark Ronson's reflections showed how the unpredictability of his early years eventually gave him the steadiness artists sought in the studio. What once felt like chaos, he explained, became the foundation for a career built on creating calm in the spotlight.