The company says it was “made aware of a dispute” involving the book, which Porter’s family has denounced as a fabrication.

Sean “Diddy” Combs with his former partner, Kim Porter, at a celebration for his 35th birthday in New York in 2004. (Kathy Willens/AP)

A controversial book about Kim Porter and Sean “Diddy” Combs was removed from Amazon on Tuesday, days after Porter’s family and friends decried claims from its independent publisher that it was a memoir based on Porter’s diary.

“We were made aware of a dispute regarding this title and have notified the publisher,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “The book is not currently available for sale in our store.”

“Kim’s Lost Words: A journey for justice, from the other side …,” a 59-page book on Combs’s longtime partner, appeared on Amazon last month. But after Combs’s arrest and indictment in New York on charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, and a Daily Mail story about the book, “Kim’s Lost Words” quickly found an audience. It briefly topped Amazon’s best-selling books list, according to the Associated Press.

Todd Christopher Guzze — the author, who goes by Chris Todd and published it under the pseudonym Jamal T. Millwood — claims the book is drawn from a “memoir/diary” Porter said she wanted public before her death in 2018. The typo-ridden booklet claims to detail Porter’s relationship with Combs, such as the violence she supposedly endured from Combs and salacious allegations about their sex life. Combs and Porter (the mother of four of his children, including one from her previous relationship, whom he later adopted) were together, on and off, from the 1990s until 2007.

But many of the late model’s family and friends have publicly disputed its legitimacy, including Al B. Sure!, Porter’s former partner and father of her eldest son, who sent a cease-and-desist letter to the author.

In late July, Porter’s friend Eboni Elektra took to Instagram to condemn the book: “THERE IS NO BOOK! There never was. Several people continue to speak about and spread blatant lies regarding this ‘mystery manuscript’ as if it were true. People…… IT’S NOT,” she wrote. “Kim would never do such a thing.”

“People will go GREAT LENGTHS to achieve fame and notoriety, most times to the detriment of others, so please don’t believe the lies,” she added.

Following the heightened attention around “Kim’s Lost Words,” Porter’s children Quincy Brown, Christian Combs, Jessie Combs and D’Lila Combs issued a joint statement on Instagram to address “hurtful and false rumors” about Porter and Combs’s relationship.

“Claims that our mom wrote a book are simply untrue. She did not, and anyone claiming to have a manuscript is misrepresenting themselves,” the statement read. “… Any so-called ‘friend’ speaking on behalf of our mom or her family is not a friend, nor do they have her best interests at heart.”

In the cease-and-desist letter, the lawyer representing Al B. Sure!, Robert Hantman, accused Todd of misrepresenting the singer and record producer’s personal life and “fabricating serious, false accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior.” He called on Todd to apologize, stop selling the book, and publicly retract defamatory statements about Al B. Sure! and Porter.

Unauthorized books such as “Kim’s Lost Words” can easily find a home on Amazon, according to Chris Olsen, founder of Publish Her, an independent publishing company that guides authors through the self-publishing process. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

The journey from aspiring to published author can take just a matter of days, Olsen said. All one needs is two PDF files: one for the cover of the book and another for the book itself. Publishing industry standards need not apply.

When uploading book files to the Amazon platform, the company asks potential authors to acknowledge that they own the rights to the content they are uploading.

“You basically click a button,” Olsen said.

With those files in hand, Amazon’s review process can take anywhere from 24 to 48 hours after a book is uploaded. Once the files are approved, the book is available for sale on the site with an ISBN, the 13-digit code used to identify individual books. Authors decide their own price.

“Anybody can post any book on Amazon, you just have to create an account,” said Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, an advocacy organization for writers. “There is so much scammy stuff going on now, particularly with AI,” she added. Rasenberger pointed out that, while the publishing giant does have some tools in place that trigger an investigation into potentially libelous material, the most effective way to get a bogus book taken down is reader complaints.

“But stuff definitely gets through, and there’s no reason that their filters would catch something like this,” said Rasenberger, referring to “Kim’s Lost Words.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how many copies of the $22 book were sold. The book does not appear to be available from any online booksellers, with a search for its ISBN turning up no hits. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing offers free ISBNs that typically begin with 979, as the number for “Kim’s Lost Words” does. Books with an Amazon ISBN can only be distributed by the company and cannot be sold anywhere else.

Twelve sexual assault lawsuits have been filed against Combs in the past year, and a team of lawyers announced Tuesday that it would be filing 120 more beginning in the next month. The lawsuits would exponentially increase the number of sexual abuse accusations against the embattled music producer.

“The biggest secret in the entertainment industry, that really wasn’t a secret at all, has finally been revealed to the world,” said Tony Buzbee, one of the lead attorneys, at a news conference Tuesday. “The wall of silence has now been broken.”