Combs is appealing against a court order to pay more than $250,000 (£137,000) a year for 11-year-old Justin, his son by his childhood sweetheart Misa Hylton-Brim. He claims the size of the award — the highest ever made in New York state — will not only spoil the boy but indulge the mother.
“This is not about the money. This is about me as a father,” Combs said. “My child is being used. There is a scam that is going on.”
Hylton-Brim previously received just over $5,000 (£2,750) a month in child support, but Combs topped that up by also funding school fees, medical bills and holidays.
Most stars shrink from publicity when custody and child support arrangements are at stake, but Combs is determined to speak out. He believes celebrities are being made to pay more than wealthy, lesser-known business tycoons.
“It’s a personal thing with Sean,” said a source close to the singer. “He feels celebrities are being taken advantage of.”
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The 35-year-old, white-suited music mogul has met his match in Brett Kimmel, the lawyer representing his ex- girlfriend. He helped the Brazilian model Luciana Morad in her battle with Mick Jagger for $35,000-a-month child support for her six-year-old son Lucas. Jagger was forced to take a DNA test and settled for an undisclosed sum.
Kimmel also represented Koo Stark, Prince Andrew’s former girlfriend, in her battle with the American millionaire Warren Walker over support for their daughter Tatiana.
The softly spoken but hard-hitting lawyer has been described as the “pit bull of paternity suits”. In one face-to-face meeting, Combs got so angry that he is said to have lunged at Kimmel across a table.
“I actually think he should pay more, but the court has determined what’s appropriate,” said Kimmel. “Whether he is happy or not isn’t relevant.”
Combs lost his own father in a drug-related shooting at the age of three. His mother worked double shifts to help him through school and college and instilled in him the importance of good parenting.
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“If anything, (Justin) has too much,” Combs told the New York Daily News. “It’s whatever he needs and above. He goes to the best private schools. He gets a tutor five days a week. He does every extracurricular activity. I bring him to St Tropez.”
Kimmel does not question Combs’s involvement as a father, but said: “It doesn’t matter if he has paid money in the past or intends to in the future. The mother should never be beholden to him.”
Hylton-Brim is aggrieved because Combs is paying $12,000 (£6,600) a month to Kim Porter, the mother of his second son, Christian, 7 — though Porter pays school fees out of that sum. Combs split up with Porter when he began dating the Hollywood star Jennifer Lopez, but is now living with her again.
Hylton-Brim said: “I didn’t think it would come to this and that Sean would fight me on this, because he didn’t fight Kim Porter.”
Combs claims Hylton-Brim intends to support her other children with his money.
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“I’ll always love her, she was my high school sweetheart,” he said. “But she did this two months after she separated from her husband. She didn’t do it when Justin was seven, eight or nine. Why not then?” Combs’s protest has won sympathy from fathers’ rights representatives, who say courts are biased against fathers.
“You can’t say a child needs $250,000. It’s absolutely ridiculous,” said Lowell Jaks of the Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights.
“It eats at the inside of you that the only worth you have is your wallet. He’s hurt that his fatherhood is being challenged. I’m glad he’s speaking out about it, like Bob Geldof did in Britain.”
Geldof has spoken out against the way he was dealt with when he fought a custody battle with Paula Yates, his late wife: “The way that the law treated me and men in general was with contempt. It was humiliating.”
Kimmel retorted that for all Combs’s injured feelings, he was enjoying the publicity. “He doesn’t mind at all that he’s having to give the highest award in New York state. It’s like a badge he wears.”
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Yet even Kimmel once admitted that having a child by a celebrity was an attractive prospect. “Sometimes I’ve thought of having a uterus implanted in my body and trying it out. Imagine $120,000-a-year tax free, just because you had a baby.”