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.

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

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.