At Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Trial, Talk of Baby Oil, Guns and a Guest: Kanye West

At about 11:20 a.m. on Friday, there was a commotion at the entrance to the Federal District courthouse in Lower Manhattan when Ye, the rapper and provocateur formerly known as Kanye West, entered the building where Sean Combs is standing trial.

Ye, wearing sunglasses and a white denim jacket and pants, was accompanied by Mr. Combs’s son Christian. When he was asked by a reporter if he was there to support Mr. Combs, Ye said yes — though he stayed in the courthouse for only about 30 minutes, and was never seated in the courtroom.

For months, Ye has been one of the only major celebrities to offer public support for Mr. Combs, who is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. Prosecutors have said that employees of Mr. Combs, including security staff, worked on his behalf as part of a “criminal enterprise” to commit a variety of crimes, including kidnapping, arson and obstruction of justice. Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty.

The presence of Ye — who has become a pariah in the music industry in recent years for issuing brazen antisemitic comments — was brief, but it electrified the building.

When he tried to enter the 26th-floor courtroom where Mr. Combs’s trial was underway, Ye was told that he was not on the approved list for the day, which is held by court officers and includes reporters and members of the public who arrive early.

So Ye was directed to a mostly empty overflow room three floors down. There, with Christian Combs and Charlucci Finney, a friend of Mr. Combs, Ye watched a closed-circuit video feed as the proceedings were set to resume after a break.