In June 2000 while awaiting trial, Puff flew to the island of Capri in Italy to attend L.A. Reid’s marriage to school teacher Erica Holton.
By then, Jennifer Lopez was already distancing herself from Puff. Her family, friends, and managers warned her to avoid him.
Once he finally accepted that Lopez was gone, he immediately began courting Kim Porter once more.
The only problem was that Kim had put their relationship in the past. She was seeing Shakir Stewart, head of Atlanta-based Hitco Music and L.A. Reid's top protege who was climbing to the top of the music business world.
Shakir was a good brother and businessman who did right by his artists. Beyonce was was one of the first artists he signed to Hitco and Ciara was signed after he took on duties at LaFace.
Puff ran into Kim on the island. Somehow he found out a phone message from Shakir to Kim.
“How are my babies doing?” Shakir asked her on the message.
When Puff realized Kim was doing fine without him, he was incensed.
After summoning a couple of his bodyguards, Puff left the Palace and went to Shakir’s room at the hotel. He bammed on Shakir’s door until he answered it.
“What the fukk you doing leaving messages on my bytch’s cell phone?” Puff raged. “Where do you get off saying you the daddy of my kids?”
Shakir knew that Puff never confronted anyone without backup, so he was afraid to defend himself.
He tried to explain to Puff that he and Kim were only friends and that he was joking around when he left the message. But he also told Puff that he had no business trying to run the life of a woman that he repeatedly abandoned.
Puff called him a liar and some other expletives, then picked up a chair and clobbered Shakir with it. As Shakir crumpled to the floor, Puff ran away from the hotel with his guards.
Reid was furious when he discovered how Puff had attacked Shakir, at his wedding, no less.
Reid finally understood why Benny Medina had concluded that Puff was out of control and incorrigible.
Shakir was so afraid of Puff’s henchmen coming to his offices in Atlanta to finish him off that he avoided going to work for weeks.