T.D. Jakes said 44,000 AI bots spread rumors linking him to Diddy and criminal activity in what he called a targeted misinformation campaign.
T.D. Jakes said he was bombarded by 44,000 AI-generated bots that flooded the internet with false claims tying him to Sean “Diddy” Combs and alleged sex parties, calling it a coordinated smear campaign targeting prominent Black public figures.
The megachurch leader and media mogul addressed the digital onslaught during a recent interview, revealing the scale of the misinformation push. “When the [rumors] first broke out, it was 44,000 bots that were released on me,” Jakes said. He added that an investigation “discovered that 98% of them were all artificial intelligence-generated.”
The rumors, which gained traction online in the wake of multiple lawsuits and criminal allegations against Diddy in 2024 and 2025, falsely linked Jakes to criminal behavior and salacious events.
He was named in a lawsuit as someone Diddy allegedly tried to use for image control, but Jakes was never accused of any wrongdoing.
Fake videos and AI-manipulated thumbnails circulated on YouTube, falsely depicting Jakes being arrested or attending parties connected to Diddy. None of the content was supported by credible evidence.
T.D. Jakes Takes Legal Action Over Diddy Lies
Jakes and his legal team have since filed motions seeking information from YouTube and Google to uncover who is behind the false content. The goal is to identify the individuals or groups responsible for launching the bot-driven attacks.
Jakes made it clear he had no involvement in any of the alleged incidents. “The other thing that it really proved to me, to Oprah, to Denzel, to all the people, is that it’s everybody. It goes along with the turf,” he said. “We have got to stop getting our information from TikTok,” he said.
He also dismissed the rumors as baseless. “That’s kinda water under the bridge. If there were anything there, the FBI would have been in it … It’s like when I had my health scare—within seconds, it was all over the world, you wouldn’t have to find it on Instagram, you wouldn’t have to find it on YouTube. You would find it on the 6 o’clock news.”
Jakes suffered a heart attack in November 2024 while preaching at The Potter’s House in Dallas.
After recovering, he stepped down as senior pastor. Jakes then handed over leadership to his daughter, Sarah Jakes Roberts and her husband, Touré Roberts.
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