Having already turned their respective entrepreneurial skills toward providing the world with hamburgers and vodka, Mark Wahlberg and Sean “Diddy” Combs have joined forces to similarly introduce fans to water, a substance that has the selling points of being endorsed by Mark Wahlberg and Sean “Diddy” Combs, as well as being necessary for survival. Wahlberg and Combs announced their new business venture of liking water with a joint press conference, which The Hollywood Reporter says began with Wahlberg joking, “You guys thought we were going to rap today,” before THR explains, “But alas, there was no rapping.”
Alack, it was true: There was only water, and the non-rapped story of how the two old friends discovered their mutual interest in water, which flourished the one portentous evening Sean “Diddy” Combs spotted Mark Wahlberg “at a fight event” carrying a bottle of AQUAHydrate, “and Combs asked about the water.”
Tantalizingly, the details stop there, but the scene likely played out as such:
SEAN “DIDDY” COMBS: My friend, actor Mark Wahlberg! How fortuitous to encounter you. Are you enjoying the fight event?
MARK WAHLBERG: I dare say I am, rapper and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs. It reminds me of my motion picture The Fighter, in which my character took part in many a fight event. Why, just thinking of it makes me parched!
[Mark Wahlberg raises the bottle of AQUAHydrate he has been cradling until now like a newborn child, bringing it to his lips. He takes a long, languorous drink, never breaking eye contact with Sean “Diddy” Combs, out of respect for their friendship.]
SEAN “DIDDY” COMBS: Ah, enjoying some Ciroc vodka, I see. That’s good. Putting it in your mouth like that is exactly what I designed it for.
MARK WAHLBERG: Sean “Diddy” Combs—may I call you Diddycombs? Diddycombs, my dearest friend, alas, this is not your fine vodka product. It’s a bottle of water, the vodka of the sea.
SEAN “DIDDY” COMBS [whispering]: Tell me everything about water, Mark Wahlberg.
From there the fight event surely faded into the background as their conversation proceeded well into the dawn, until at last Combs was convinced to actually try the water.
“When I tasted this water, I fell in love with this water. It was that simple," Combs recalled. "I really do not like the taste of the majority of waters that are on the market. I am just looking for something that makes me feel good and tastes good.” The article does not say, but presumably at this point Combs fell into a fugue state, recalling the many times he’d taken a sip of water only to have it boil, rancid on his tongue, refusing to make him feel good. Why did life always have to be this way? he'd ask himself as he sprayed this hate-water in the face of the nearest assistant.
Now, it doesn’t: Mark Wahlberg and Sean “Diddy” Combs have finally found their water, and now you will also have their water—water that already existed, yes, but that will now also be nurtured by the shared business acumen of Mark Wahlberg and Sean “Diddy” Combs, as well as by the former president of Fiji Water, who’s probably just there to stand back and give compliments. The endeavor is all part of the long relationship that Wahlberg and Combs have enjoyed. And yes, The Hollywood Reporter’s nosy reporter Rebecca Ford, someday this relationship might include a Combs cameo in the upcoming Entourage film, but what’s really important right now is WATER.
That, and the ineffable chemistry of friendship, as mysterious as the combination of hydrogen and oxygen molecules that magically creates water. As Combs puts it, “One of the things that's very important to say is that we don't abuse our relationship. Chemistry is very important in a relationship. This man inspires me to be a better person." Indeed, a person who drinks water. We can all only hope to have such a friend.