BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — A few weeks ago, Sean Combs was being coy with a room full of TV critics.
Combs — a k a Puff Daddy, a k a P. Diddy — told us that he was about to change his name again. He just wouldn't tell us what he was going to change it to.
As to why he keeps changing it, well, that answer was simple.
"Because I can," he said.
And he's not at all worried that going through a variety of names confuses matters.
"It's good to confuse things," Combs said. "Everything doesn't have to be regular. . . . I do that thing. And I'm about to change it again."
Try as we might, however, Combs wouldn't unveil the new name. Even though he had a room full of people who would start dialing their cell phones to call their editors and make this one of the top stories in newspapers across the country.
Well, maybe not. But it would have been an item in a lot of critics' TV columns.
And the only clues we could get were that the new name, "Like, it's fun. You know what I'm saying?"
Well, no.
"It's fun. . . . You have to watch old rock stars to get it," Combs said.
Which didn't make much sense at the time. And made even less sense when Combs later announced that his new name would be (drum roll please) — "Diddy."
I, for one, am horribly concerned that there's a lonely "P" floating out there somewhere that some other star will latch onto.
Sean Combs/Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy will be hosting the Video Music Awards (Sunday, 6 p.m., MTV), which don't really mean much but will feature performances by 50 Cent, Coldplay, Ludacris, Shakira, R. Kelly, Mariah Carey, the Killers, Green Day, Kelly Clarkson and Kanye West.
And, who knows, maybe Combs will change his name again during the telecast.
CONAN O'BRIEN DISSED UTAH on "Late Night" a few days ago. At least I assume he did. Because I'm not quite sure where this particular joke came from:
"This week the Israeli government began moving thousands of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. Officials say once the area is cleared of all Jews, the land will be renamed 'Utah.' "
Help me here. Was O'Brien trying to say that there are no Jews in the state? And where might he have gotten that idea?
Or is it just funny to say something that sounds as if it's dissing Utah, nonsensical though the actual "joke" might be?
Oh, well. It least it wasn't a joke about polygamy. Or the Osmonds.
That would have been Jay Leno, not Conan O'Brien.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com