Diddy Claims Joaquin Phoenix's Rap Career Is 'For Real' & That He Produced And Mixed A Record With The Actor

Legit or not legit, that is the question.

Ever since his breakdown on David Letterman, the legitimacy of Joaquin Phoenix’s reported career change as a rapper last year has been up in the air. Hip hop mogul Diddy has now thrown his own two cents in revealing that he actually produced and mixed a record with Phoenix.

“Joaquin’s for real,” he told MTV News. “Joaquin’s for real. If he’s not for real, he tricked me. We went into the studio, did a record, mixed a record and everything.”

Interestingly, the quote from Diddy here somewhat contradicts reports from a recent market screening that described scenes where Phoenix and director Casey Affleck were “trying to get Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to produce Phoenix’s rap album, but the hip-hop impresario is not terribly interested.” It’s just another in a long line of conflicting reports on the project with Affleck also recently coming out batting for the legitimacy of the Phoenix documentary after those reports.

Of course, we’re more inclined to believe objective parties like the buyers at that screening rather than Affleck or Phoenix. Diddy, meanwhile, is probably just as likely to have been kept in the dark about it all as he is in on the joke — is that a “is this guy serious” or “this is hilarious” look on his face in the above photo? Can we really believe his claim of an actual Joaquin Phoenix rap record existing? We’ll have to wait and see but if so, someone seriously needs to drop that online.