Diddy trial: What we have learned from Cassie’s testimony

Published

7 hours ago

May 16, 2025

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Singer Cassie is the key witness in the prosecution’s case against Sean “Diddy” Combs.

The pair were in an on-off relationship for about 11 years, from 2007 to 2018, after she signed to his label, Bad Boy Records.

She has alleged she was physically, sexually and mentally abused by Combs for most of this time, accusing him of forcing her into “hundreds” of drug-fuelled sex sessions with male escorts, known as “freak offs”, while he watched.

But his lawyers argue the singer, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, was a willing participant who consented to a “swingers lifestyle”.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial: Week 1 – Everything that’s happened so far

Combs, 55, is charged with sex-trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denied any allegations of sexual abuse.

The trial in Manhattan, New York, is expected to last about eight weeks, with evidence from more women who will remain anonymous to come.

It is not yet known whether Combs himself will take the stand.

Ms Ventura, 38, has consented to being named and her testimony – including allegations about an alleged attack at a hotel in 2016, where Combs was filmed on CCTV seemingly beating and dragging her as she attempted to leave a freak off – is central to the case.

Here is what we have learned from her testimony.

‘Freak offs became like a job’

During her first day of evidence, Ms Ventura told the trial that after signing what was a huge 10-album deal with Combs’s Bad Boy Records, she only ever released her first, called Cassie, in 2006.

Instead, she said, freak offs with escorts became so frequent – and required recovery time – that they were like a job.

She was 22 when, during the first year of their relationship, she said the hip-hop mogul first proposed the idea. Her “stomach churned”, she said, and she was “confused, nervous, but also loved him very much”.

To jurors, she gave graphic details of these drug and drink-fuelled encounters with male escorts, saying Combs would watch and masturbate, and often record the encounters and watch the videos back.

They could last for hours or even days, she said – the longest allegedly for four days. She says she would get no sleep during these encounters, so used drugs to keep herself awake, but also disassociated.

“Freak offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again,” Ms Ventura said. Each time, she added, she had to recuperate from lack of sleep, alcohol, drugs “and other substances”, and “having sex with a stranger for days”.

Combs ‘used violence and blackmail’

Ms Ventura told jurors Combs was violent to her over the course of their relationship, giving her black eyes and bruises, kicking her and dragging her.

The hip-hop star became increasingly controlling, she said, and was allegedly abusive over the smallest perceived slights. “You make the wrong face, and the next thing I knew I was getting hit in the face,” she told the court.

When asked how frequently Combs became violent with her, Ms Ventura responded: “Too frequently.”

She said she began feeling as if she could not say no to Combs’s demands because “there were blackmail materials to make me feel like if I didn’t do it, it would be held over my head in that way or these things would become public”.

Ms Ventura described several alleged violent incidents, including one when she allegedly suffered a “pretty significant gash” above her left eye after the rapper threw her into a bed frame.

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

Jurors shown explicit images

During the second day of Ms Ventura’s testimony, the courtroom fell silent as images from freak offs were shown to jurors.

These were kept private from the public gallery so that only those who needed to see them could do so.

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

The pictures included images of Ms Ventura with escorts.

Alleged rape after relationship ended

Ms Ventura told the court 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.

Throughout her testimony she described a complex relationship with a man she loved and was desperate to please, but was also scared of. She has maintained she never wanted to have sex with strangers, but wanted to please him.

Why is Cassie testifying?

Telling the courtroom, and therefore the world, about her experiences, over four days of questioning, was humiliating and difficult – prosecutor Emily Johnson asked why she put herself through it.

Ms Ventura had remained fairly calm and composed throughout her time on the stand, with a few emotional moments, but at this point she broke down as she described her “personal shame” to jurors.

“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.

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.

The hotel CCTV ‘attack’

CCTV from the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles, filmed on 5 March 2016, was first released by CNN in May 2024 – six months after Ms Ventura filed her lawsuit and four months before Combs was charged with the crimes he is now on trial for.

It showed Combs, wearing just socks and a towel around his waist, allegedly beating and dragging Ms Ventura in a hallway.

She told the court this happened after she tried to leave a freak off after being hit by Combs during the session. She had the premiere coming up for her first film, The Perfect Match, the court heard.

Despite the incident, the pair were pictured at the event together.

Messages paint a complex picture

Under cross-examination from the defence, sexually explicit messages between Ms Ventura and Combs were read in court.

Some showed her expressing apparent enthusiasm about the freak off sex sessions she alleges she was forced into.

“I’m always ready to freak off,” the court heard Ms Ventura wrote in one message in August 2009.

In another, she told Combs 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”.

Messages from 4 March 2016, the day before the InterContinental Hotel incident, were also read in court.

One said: “Baby I want to FO so bad but I dont want to f*** myself up.”

Ms Ventura told the court this was damage limitation and that she wanted to keep him happy due to her upcoming film premiere.

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

Diddy ‘overdosed at Playboy Mansion’

Drug use came up a lot during Ms Ventura’s testimony, and she admitted to using drugs including ketamine, ecstasy, MDMA and opiates, saying she needed them in order to get through the freak offs.

She also claimed Combs used drugs and said she believes he was addicted to opiates when they were together.

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

The trial continues.

Entertainment

Salman Rushdie attacker who left author blind in one eye jailed

Published

4 hours ago

May 16, 2025

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Hadi Matar: Man who stabbed Salman Rushdie - leaving author blind in one eye - is jailed

A man convicted of stabbing Salman Rushdie, leaving the author blind in one eye, has been jailed for 25 years.

Hadi Matar was found guilty of attempted murder and assault in February.

Prosecutors had been seeking the maximum sentence of 25 years for the attack in August 2022, along with an additional seven-year term for injuring a second man.

During the trial, Sir Salman revealed he feared he was dying when the masked attacker plunged a knife into his head and body more than a dozen times.

The attack happened as the 77-year-old was introduced on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in New York for a discussion on writer safety.

Sir Salman was stabbed in the head, neck, torso and left hand and suffered damage to his liver and intestines.

The Midnight’s Children author spent 17 days at a hospital in Pennsylvania and more than three weeks at a rehabilitation facility in New York City, as he recovered from his injuries. He wrote about the attack and his recovery in his 2024 memoir Knife.

Matar will next face a trial on terrorism-related charges. Prosecutors allege the 27-year-old was trying to carry out a decades-old fatwa calling for the author’s death.

In 1989, Iran’s then leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued the fatwa in response to the publication of Sir Salman’s novel The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims consider blasphemous, causing the Indian born British-American author to go into hiding.

In 1998, Iran announced it would not enforce the decree, allowing Sir Salman to travel freely over the last quarter of a century.

Matar pleaded not guilty to providing materials to terrorists, attempting to provide material support to Hezbollah and engaging in terrorism transcending national boundaries.

Entertainment

R&B singer Chris Brown denied bail over allegation of causing GBH with intent

Published

7 hours ago

May 16, 2025

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R&B singer Chris Brown denied bail over allegation of causing GBH with intent

Chris Brown has been remanded in custody until 13 June by a judge in Manchester.

The R&B singer is facing an allegation of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, and has been charged.

He is accused of attacking music producer Abraham Diaw with a bottle at the Tape nightclub in central London.

The incident allegedly took place back in February 2023.

During a hearing at Manchester Magistrates’ Court, prosecutor Hannah Nicholls said Brown had committed “an unprovoked attack with a weapon in a nightclub full of people”.

She told the court that Brown had struck Mr Diaw with the bottle several times. He then allegedly chased the victim and proceeded to punch and kick him in an attack caught on CCTV.

Brown arrived at the dock flanked by court officials. His hair was bleached blond, and he wore sweatpants and a black T-shirt.

He spoke to confirm his name and date of birth, but did not enter a plea.

District Judge Joanne Hirst said the alleged offence was “too serious” to be dealt with in her court, and sent the case to London’s Southwark Crown Court.

Brown will next appear for a plea and trial preparation hearing in the capital on 13 June after a bail application was denied.

The 36-year-old was arrested at a hotel in Manchester in the early hours of Thursday by detectives from the Metropolitan Police.

Brown’s global tour is due to begin in The Netherlands on 8 June, and he is also scheduled to perform at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena on 15 June.

Prior to the court hearing, CPS London North’s deputy chief crown prosecutor Adele Kelly said: “The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are active and that he has the right to a fair trial.

“It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”

Brown’s representatives have been contacted for comment.

Entertainment

Eurovision 2025: Sex, survival and saunas – all the songs to look out for

Published

7 hours ago

May 16, 2025

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Eurovision 2025: Sex, survival and saunas - all the songs to look out for

It’s the world’s biggest music competition, and this year the Eurovision Song Contest is being held in Switzerland – the location of Eurovision’s first ever show.

Canadian singing royalty Celine Dion (a previous Eurovision winner) has already delivered a pre-recorded speech during the semi-finals and there’s speculation she may turn up for the final in Basel – health permitting.

Now, with 26 nations set to compete for the coveted glass microphone, here are the best bits to watch out for.

Who will win?

Sweden’s entry Bara Bada Bastu (Just Sauna), performed by Finish comedy group KAJ, is the song to beat. An ode to – you’ve guessed it – saunas, it comes complete with a quartet of bucket hat-wearing and towel-draped dancers.

A total earworm – it’s got double the number of views on YouTube of any other competing act.

It’s the bookies’ favourite by a longshot, and Sweden has past Eurovision form – with seven wins to its name, a feat matched only by Ireland, which didn’t make it through to the final this year.

Austrian-Filipino singer-songwriter JJ – who originally trained as a countertenor – is representing Austria with operatic ballad Wasted Love.

Making the most of his falsetto voice – in a way not dissimilar to last year’s winner Nemo – it tells a story of unrequited love, saving a techno breakdown for the last third of the song. Classic Eurovision.

The bookies fancy this one too, and it’s the second favourite to win.

Back in the game after its act was unceremoniously kicked out of the competition shortly before the final last year, the Netherlands has Claude representing the country with C’est La Vie.

A refugee from the bloody civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he moved to the Netherlands at the age of nine.

His English and French language song, which combines elements of chanson and French-Caribbean zouk, is a tribute to his mother, who taught him to see the light in life despite hardship.

French singer Louane, also has an emotional French language song written for her mother, who died when she was just 17.

Maman tells a story of three female generations, ending with her daughter’s voice, guaranteed to put a lump in your throat unless you have a heart of stone.

What about the UK?

Remember Monday are representing the UK with What the Hell Just Happened?

The country pop trio, who auditioned for The Voice UK in 2019, first met at Farnborough Sixth Form in Hampshire, and are the UK’s first all-female group act since Precious in 1999.

They were guaranteed to make the final, as the UK is part of Eurovision’s “Big Five” – the countries who make the biggest financial contributions to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

They’ll be hoping for a better result than Olly Alexander, who came 18th at Malmo in 2024, and Mae Muller who placed second last at Liverpool in 2023.

Their song’s title will prove a gift to headline writers should they fail in that mission…

From deeply moving to silly, to utter filth

Eurovision never fails to surprise with its power pop and outrageous outfits, and this year is no exception – with both plenty of quirk and plenty of heart on offer.

Slovenian comedian Klemen Slakonja is best known for his impressions of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

But his ballad – How Much Time Do We Have Left – is a moving response to his wife’s cancer diagnosis.

His performance includes him being hung upside down to symbolise his disorientation on receiving the life-changing news.

Diagnosed with bone marrow cancer, actress Mojca Fatur, has defied the odds and joins him at Eurovision, providing a message of hope and survival against the odds.

In a blast to the past, San Marino’s entry, Tutta L’Italia, was written by Gabry Ponte – one of the members of Eurodance group Eiffel 65, who wrote late 90s hit Blue (Da BaDee). It’s a tribute to everything Italian, mixing dance beats with the traditional folk of Calabria.

Following the same theme, Estonia’s Espresso Macchiato also offers an absurd review of all things Italian and is performed by Tommy Cash – a previous Charli XCX collaborator.

Meanwhile, Malta’s Miriana Conte’s original lyrics had to be rewritten due to complaints they broke broadcasting guidelines with an X-rated innuendo. Even with tweaked lyrics the song is pretty raunchy.

While Finland’s Erika Vikman’s song, Ich Komme, is all about “pleasure” and “ecstasy”. Interpret those themes as you will.

War amid the glitz

Despite a strict apolitical stance, geopolitical conflict has affected Eurovision over the last few years.

In 2022, Russia was banned from participating over the Ukraine war, and both this year and last, there have been calls for Israel to be banned over its actions in Gaza.

Yuval Raphael, who survived the October 7 2023 attacks which were the catalyst for Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza, is representing Israel.

She will perform her Hebrew, French and English language entry, a piano ballad, New Day Will Rise.

Israel has won Eurovision four times, and last year finished in fifth place.

This year, the ban on certain flags being waved in the auditorium has been relaxed, meaning Palestinian symbols are likely to be seen in the St Jakobshalle arena.

Meanwhile, Ukraine, which first entered the competition in the year after Russia invaded, has made it to the grand final each time since then – winning in 2023 and coming third last year.

This year the country will be represented by alternative rock group Ziferblat (whose name translates as clock face), with the dramatic track Bird Of Pray.

The English and Ukrainian language song features lyrics about reuniting with lost loved ones and returning home.

Sky News will be covering the grand final on Saturday night, so check back in to see who claims the Eurovision title.