Sexually explicit messages between RnB singer Cassie and her former boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs have been read in court, with some showing her expressing apparent enthusiasm about the “freak off” sex sessions with escorts she alleges she was forced into.

The 38-year-old, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, faced a full day of cross-examination from the hip-hop mogul’s defence lawyers, who are attempting to convince the jury she consented to a “swingers lifestyle”.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution, in relation to Ms Ventura and other women. His lawyers have conceded he could be violent, but say nothing he did amounted to crimes of this nature.

Ms Ventura alleges she was physically abused and degraded for years by the powerful hip-hop star and music executive, accusing him of violence, coercion, blackmail and rape.

Prosecutors say he exploited and used his network of employees to facilitate illegal activities, which is a key part of the racketeering charge.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial: Day 4 – As it happened

But during the fourth day of the trial in Manhattan, New York, defence lawyers pushed back, focusing on texts and emails that were both romantic and sexually explicit.

“I’m always ready to freak off,” the court heard Ms Ventura wrote in one message in August 2009. In another she told him, about a freak off: “Can’t wait.” And in another, jurors were told, she described a video of one sex session with an escort as “dope”.

The pair were together, on and off, for about 11 years from 2007 to 2018.

Combs, whose mother Janice has been in court all week to support him, along with some of his children, appeared relaxed as the messages were read aloud for jurors.

Messages from 4 March 2016 – the day before an incident at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles, in which Combs was filmed on CCTV seeming to attack Ms Ventura in a hallway, as he was wearing just a towel and socks – were also read in court.

Footage from this incident, which was first made public in May 2024, has been a key piece of evidence during the trial. Ms Ventura has told the court it happened as she tried to leave a freak off session after being hit by Combs.

Freak off ‘felt dirty, grimy’

During cross-examination, the court heard Ms Ventura sent a sexually explicit message the day before this.

She also sent him a message saying, “Baby I want to FO so bad but I dont want to f*** myself up”.

Ms Ventura has told the court this was damage limitation and that she wanted to keep him happy, as she had a film premiere coming up a few days later.

Jurors also heard details of an email she sent in 2009, in which she expressed conflicting feelings about taking part in these sex sessions with escorts.

In the email, she told Combs she needed to trust him “beyond it just being sexual” – that in order to be more open sexually, “I need to feel safe, like home”.

She told him “the last time was a mistake but since has made me feel a little dirty, and grimy as opposed to sexual and spontaneous”.

This was the reason she was going “back and forth in my mind with wanting and not wanting to do it”, she wrote. At first, when they were “so in love… there were no questions asked, it felt right”.

She told him: “I get nervous that I’m just becoming the girlfriend that you get your fantasies off with.”

Ms Ventura has told the court that she fell in love with Combs very quickly when they got together, when she was 21 and he was 37. She has said she wanted to please him, but became fearful of him.

At one point during cross-examination, she raised that she felt jurors were not hearing the full context of some of the messages being highlighted, saying: “There’s a lot we skipped over.”

Combs’s lawyers are painting his sexual preferences as part of a “swingers” lifestyle that has been mentioned previously at trial, saying people might not agree with it but it does not make him guilty of sex trafficking.

Questioned on this, Ms Ventura said they were “very different”.

She was also asked about drug use, her own and Combs’s, and at one point told the court she believed he was addicted to opiates when they were together.

She also said he was taken to hospital after overdosing on opiates at the Playboy Mansion in 2012 – something which was reported on by outlets including TMZ at the time, when it was said he had suffered a migraine.

Judge frustrated with Diddy’s lawyers

Away from the questioning, a notable moment in court came when Judge Arun Subramanian became frustrated with Diddy’s lawyers over how long they will spend cross-examining Ms Ventura.

He told them they should get a day and a half – the same time the prosecution had. “In what universe did you not understand this is what was going to happen?” he told them.

The judge is keen to keep the trial on time and particularly Ms Ventura’s evidence, as she is eight months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine, who has been supporting her in court.

Read more:
The rise and fall of Diddy
Diddy – a timeline of allegations
Everything you need to know about the trial

She has now spent almost three days on the witness stand – tomorrow will be her fourth – and became emotional towards the end of her testimony on her second day.

The criminal case against Combs comes after Ms Ventura sued him in 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. The suit was settled in 24 hours, for a figure that was undisclosed at the time.

Ms Ventura has confirmed during the trial that this was $20m (about £15m).

Combs, 55, has been jailed since September, and faces at least 15 years or possibly life in prison if convicted.

Singer Chris Brown has been arrested over an alleged bottle attack at a London nightclub two years ago.

The US R&B star was arrested at a hotel in Manchester in the early hours of Thursday by Metropolitan Police detectives.

The 36-year-old is being held on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm at a nightclub in Mayfair, central London, in February 2023.

He flew into Manchester Airport on a private jet on Wednesday afternoon, according to The Sun.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said: “A 36-year-old man was arrested at a hotel in Manchester shortly after 02:00hrs on Thursday, 15 May on suspicion of grievous bodily harm.

“He has been taken into custody where he remains.

“The arrest relates to an incident at a venue in Hanover Square on 19 February 2023.

“The investigation is being led by detectives from the Central West Area Basic Command Unit.”

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The singer is set to go on tour in the UK in June and July.

Sky News has approached his representatives for comment.

Cassie Ventura broke down in tears in court as she described her “personal shame” at taking part in “freak off” sex sessions for Sean Combs – and also accused him of raping her as their relationship came to an end.

During her second day of testimony, the singer and model told jurors of several alleged violent incidents and said the hip-hop mogul, who was known as Puff Daddy and Diddy throughout his career, blackmailed her with compromising videos.

At one point, the courtroom in Manhattan, New York, fell silent as sexually explicit images from “freak offs” were shown to jurors, but kept private from the public gallery. These included images of Ms Ventura and escorts.

Combs asked his lawyer Marc Agnifilo to see a binder of the images, and thumbed through it for a few moments before handing it back.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial: Day 3 – As it happened

The 55-year-old, once one of the most powerful men in the music industry, has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex-trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

Prosecutors allege he used his fame and fortune to coerce Ms Ventura and other women into abusive sex sessions with escorts. His lawyers have conceded he could be violent, but argue that all sexual encounters were consensual and he never veered into sex trafficking and racketeering.

Ms Ventura, who is heavily pregnant with her third child, kept calm and composed for most of her evidence on Wednesday, but broke down at the end of the day when asked why she had chosen to testify.

“I can’t carry this anymore,” she told the court. “I can’t carry the shame, the guilt, the way he treated people like they were disposable. What’s right is right, what’s wrong is wrong. I came here to do the right thing.”

Early in 2023, she said she started suffering from “flashbacks” and had suicidal thoughts, so went to rehab and trauma therapy.

It is “impossible to know” how many “freak offs” she participated in, but it was in the hundreds, she told the court. Asked if she has been involved in any since ending the relationship in 2018, she replied: “No.”

Ms Ventura, 38, alleged that Combs raped her at her home in Los Angeles, after she told him she was ending things.

“I just remember crying and saying no, but it was very fast,” she said, her voice trailing off.

She told jurors she did have consensual sex with the rapper on a subsequent occasion. “We’d been together for over 10 years. You just don’t turn feelings off,” she said.

Ms Ventura sued Combs in November 2023, and settled within 24 hours. She received £20m, the trial was told.

Combs ‘threatened Cassie and Kid Cudi’

Ms Ventura’s second day of testimony also included details of how she briefly dated Scott Mescudi, better known as singer and rapper Kid Cudi, during a low point in her relationship with Combs in 2011.

Combs lunged at her with a corkscrew and kicked her in the back when he found out, jurors heard, and threatened to blow up Mescudi’s car.

These allegations were also detailed in her lawsuit, which alleged his car did “explode in his driveway” around this time.

During several hours on the stand, Ms Ventura told how she hid the extent of Comb’s alleged violence from loved ones, and described one incident when she allegedly suffered a “pretty significant gash” above her left eye after he threw her into a bed frame.

Rather than go to hospital, his security staff took her to a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, she said.

The hotel CCTV ‘attack’

An incident at a hotel in Los Angeles in March 2016, which has come up several times during the trial already, was also discussed again.

CCTV from the hotel, which was first released by CNN in May 2024, showed Combs allegedly beating Ms Ventura in a hallway.

Jurors were shown photos of her with a swollen lip following the incident as she testified. She said a friend of hers saw her injuries and was “super upset” because she’d “seen me with black eyes and busted lips before”.

She also spoke about a trip to Cannes in 2013, after which she said the rapper began playing a recording of a “freak off” on his laptop on a commercial flight to New York, with other people around them – telling her he was “going to embarrass me and release them”.

Read more:
The rise and fall of Diddy
Diddy – a timeline of allegations
Everything you need to know about the trial

Asked if the freak offs impacted her health, Ms Ventura said she had stomach problems and frequently developed urinary tract infections. She was also affected mentally, she told the court, saying they made her feel “really empty” and “gross”.

Throughout her testimony, Ms Ventura has maintained she never wanted to have sexual experiences with other people but did it at first to please the man she loved, and later out of fear. She was 22 and inexperienced when she started dating Combs, who was 17 years older, she said.

The trial continues with cross-examination of Ms Ventura from the defence tomorrow.