Amazon removed a bestselling book from its site that’s advertised as the memoir of Kim Porter, a model and actor who dated Sean “Diddy” Combs and who died in 2018.
People who were close to Porter, including her children, claimed that the 59-page book, “Kim’s Lost Words: A Journey for Justice, From the Other Side…,” was not real. Despite this, it made its way to the top spot on the Amazon list in September after Combs was indicted and arrested on sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
“We were made aware of a dispute regarding this title and have notified the publisher,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement, according to multiple media outlets. “The book is not currently available for sale in our store.”
Amazon’s decision to remove the book also comes after an attorney for musician Albert Joseph Brown, known professionally as Al B. Sure!, whose son Quincy Brown is Porter’s child, sent cease-and-desist letters to Amazon and to the person who published the book.
In a social media post on Sept. 23, Albert Brown wrote that there is a “significant suit headed right for the heads of the responsible parties who dragged my name into this bullshit.”
Quincy Brown and Porter’s three children with Combs signed a statement that the book is not real.
“Claims that our mom wrote a book are simply untrue. She did not and anyone claiming to have a manuscript is misrepresenting themselves,” they wrote. “Additionally, please understand that any so-called ‘friend’ speaking on behalf of our mom or her family is not a friend. Nor do they have her best interests at heart.”
An attorney for Combs also claimed the book was ”fake” and “a shameless attempt to profit from tragedy.”
The book was published by author, producer and journalist Todd Christopher Guzze, who goes by the name Chris Todd and went by the pseudonym Jamal T. Millwood to publish the title. According to The Associated Press, Todd claimed that sources “very close to Kim and Sean Combs” gave him a “flash drive, documents and tapes” that he used to create the book.
Rolling Stone reported that the book had multiple typos and factual errors. Todd declined to expand on how, if at all, he fact-checked the book’s content.
“If somebody put my feet to the fire and they said, ‘Life or death, is that book real?’ I have to say I don’t know. But it’s real enough to me,” Todd told Rolling Stone. “Sometimes you have to just put it out there. Maybe not 100 percent of the book is true, but maybe 80 percent is. That is to get those people to come forward and either corroborate or deny, and that helps me as an investigator to know the truth.”
Porter died at age 47 on Nov. 15, 2018, at her home in the Los Angeles area, reportedly of lobar pneumonia.
