Burning home is Ohio mansion, not Sean 'Diddy' Combs's LA residence

"A look at what's left of P Diddy's California mansion," says a January 10, 2025 post on Facebook.

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Screenshot from Facebook taken January 15, 2025

Similar posts spread across the platform and other sites such as Instagram and Threads, with several messages suggesting the fire would interfere with investigations into the rap mogul, who was indicted in September 2024 on three criminal counts alleging that he sexually abused women and coerced them into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and is slated to go to trial May 5, 2025.

The wildfires ripping through California in January 2025 have razed more than 12,000 structures, with estimates of the eventual cost as high as $275 billion. Numerous film and television stars including hotel heiress Paris Hilton are among the hundreds of people who have lost their homes in America's second-largest city.

But the posts claiming fire consumed Combs's property, which federal agents raided in March 2024 along with another residence in Florida, are false. 

The home, located at 200 S Mapleton Drive and listed for sale, sat far outside the Palisades Fire's perimeter and was not in an evacuation zone as of January 16, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's map of emergency incidents (archived here, here and here).

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Screenshot from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's website taken January 16, 2025, with the neighborhood encompassing Sean "Diddy" Combs's Los Angeles property outlined in green by AFP

Satellite imagery captured January 14 by Maxar Technologies and available via the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's map of the California fires, also shows the rapper's property unaffected (archived here).

AFP reached out to Combs Enterprises, the rapper's lawyer and the real estate agent listed for his Los Angeles home for comment, but no responses were forthcoming.

Old photo misrepresented

The image shared online, meanwhile, is outdated and unrelated to the California wildfires, reverse image searches revealed.

The photo and others depicting the same home appeared in numerous local and national news stories about a $4 million mansion in Indian Hill, Ohio, that caught fire in 2014 (archived here, here, here, here, here and here).

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Screenshot from Cleveland.com taken January 16, 2025

The picture is credited to photographer Joseph Fuqua II, whose website features it prominently (archived here).

AFP contacted Fuqua for comment, but no response was forthcoming.

The stone-built Ohio home in the photos does not resemble Combs's Los Angeles mansion, which is seen in real estate listings, Google Maps imagery and aerial footage from the March 2024 raid by federal agents (archived here, here and here).

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the wildfires here.