LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two days after declaring he had changed his name again, this time to Brother Love, rapper and producer Sean Combs says it was all just a joke.
Combs, 48, who has gone by the names Puffy, Diddy and Puff Daddy, made headlines over the weekend by announcing on Instagram that he would answer only to the name Brother Love.
On Monday, he backtracked.
"I was only joking," Combs said in a new Instagram video. "I didn’t change my name. It was just part of one of my alter egos. One of my alter egos is Love."
"You can address me by any of my older names. But if you still wanna call me Love, you can call me Love, baby. But I was only playin’," he added.
Comb's initial announcement caused a social media frenzy. It also prompted wrestling fans to note that the name Brother Love was already taken by former World Wrestling Entertainment star Bruce Prichard.
"Thank you everyone for helping @diddy see the light! Just so you know Puffy ... I love you," Prichard tweeted after the reversal by Combs.
Combs founded the Bad Boy Entertainment record label in 1993 that helped launch the careers of rappers like Notorius B.I.G. He has a successful Sean John fashion line and is ranked by Forbes magazine as the richest artist in hip hop.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Tom Brown)
