A former pop star has told a court Sean “Diddy” Combs was “frequently” violent with his ex-partner Cassie Ventura, and that he threatened her life if she spoke out about it.
Dawn Richard told the jury in Manhattan federal court that Combs made the threat after she allegedly witnessed him trying to hit Cassie with an egg skillet.
She said the Bad Boy Records founder told her and another woman who saw the alleged attack that “we could go missing” if they revealed details of what they saw.
Image: Dawn Richard arriving at court on Monday. Pic: Reuters
Richard, who was a former member of girl group Danity Kane and electric soul trio Dirty Money, said Combs would “punch [Cassie], choke her, slap her in the mouth, kick her, and punch her in the stomach”.
She said of the beatings: “When [Cassie] had these moments of trying to stick up for herself, [Combs] would hurt her for it.”
Richard also said one alleged incident took place in a West Hollywood restaurant with celebrities including Usher, Big Daddy Kane, Jimmy Iovine and Ne-yo also present.
Combs, 55, faces five criminal counts: one count of racketeering conspiracy; two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. He denies the allegations against him.
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Beginning her evidence on Friday, Richard told the jury Combs would store his drugs in a Louis Vuitton pouch and said she often” saw him use “Ketamine, cocaine, molly [also known as Ecstasy]”.
Image: Combs with girl group Danity Kane in 2009. Pic: AP
During cross-examination it was suggested her story had changed over time, but Richard said she was doing her best to recall “traumatic” events from more than a decade ago.
She admitted she had contacted Diddy after parting ways with his management and agreed that, despite being “scared” of him, she asked to come back to work for him.
Defence lawyer Nicole Westmoreland suggested Richard was testifying because she was angry that Combs had ended Danity Kane and Diddy – Dirty Money.
Ms Westmoreland asked: “You felt that Mr Combs ruined your career not once but twice?”
“Yes,” Richard replied.
Following Richard’s stint in the stand, Cassie’s ex-best friend Kerry Morgan gave evidence.
Morgan and Cassie had been friends for more than 17 years after meeting as young models.
Image: Combs with Cassie in 2006. Pic: AP
‘I was dizzy, I vomited’
Morgan, who said Combs was prone to “mood swings” and could be “very aggressive”, described two occasions she allegedly saw Combs beat Cassie.
She told the court about hearing Cassie’s “guttural, terrifying” screams before allegedly seeing Combs dragging her by her hair from the master bedroom.
Morgan also described when Combs “choked her” leaving “finger marks” on her throat, and threw a wooden hanger at her head, leaving her with concussion.
She said: “I was dizzy, I vomited a few times. I went to an urgent care facility. I hired a lawyer about the assault. I was planning on filing a lawsuit, but I did not.”
She told the court she received a $30,000 settlement from Combs over the alleged assault, organised by Cassie.
Morgan said she and Cassie ceased to be friends after the incident, explaining: “The reason I stopped speaking to her was because she was not supportive of me after that incident. I draw my line at physical abuse.”
Morgan said Cassie told her she could not leave Combs because she was reliant on him for “her job, her car, her apartment”.
Image: Michael B Jordan, pictured earlier this week. Pic: Reuters
Combs ‘jealous’ of Michael B Jordan
During Cassie’s cross-examination by the defence, the court was told that Cassie was jealous of Combs’s ex, Kim Porter, while Combs was jealous of actor Michael B Jordan, whom Cassie had a brief relationship with in 2015.
While Morgan said she couldn’t confirm whether Cassie was in a relationship with the Creed star, she confirmed: “What I remember was that she was speaking to Michael B Jordan and they hung out together and [Combs] was jealous of it.”
Morgan confirmed she had not wanted to appear in court, having “moved on” with her life, and had been subpoenaed to give testimony.
Last on the stand was Combs’s former personal assistant, David James, who described working 20-hour days for Combs at Bad Boy Records, for six or seven days, for up to three weeks at a time.
James, who had also been subpoenaed, said Cassie told him she couldn’t leave Combs’s “crazy” world because “he controls my career, pays my allowance, and pays my rent”.
Combs, previously known as Puff Daddy and P Diddy, founded Bad Boy Records, and is credited with helping turn artists including Mary J Blige, Faith Evans, Notorious B.I.G. and Usher into household names in the 1990s and 2000s.
Combs has been jailed since September and faces at least 15 years or possibly life in prison if convicted.
Bridgerton creator Shonda Rhimes says filming the drama and its spin-off Queen Charlotte in England has prompted her to consider relocating to the UK.
The US producer, who is behind some of the most popular TV dramas of the past two decades, told Sky News working in Britain had been a “really welcoming experience”, adding: “I’ve been spending a little bit more time over here and I’m going to try to spend even more if I can swap my kids into a British school.
“I’m trying to figure that part out, but I do really love being here and it’s always been such a great experience.”
Image: Rege-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor as Simon Basset and Daphne Bridgerton in Bridgerton. Pic: Netflix
Rhimes’ vast contribution to television has been recognised at this year’s Edinburgh TV festival, where she was given its inaugural fellowship award for the global impact of her shows.
Her first huge hit was Grey’s Anatomy. The medical drama, which began in 2005, is now in its 22nd season.
Image: Shonda Rhimes created Grey’s Anatomy. Pic: ABC/Kobal/Shutterstock
But finding an abandoned novel in a hotel room would motivate her to write Bridgerton, the drama that has become the biggest show on Netflix.
While its steamier scenes are often what garner most attention, she says after reading the books, she came to see it as a “workplace drama”.
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“These are women in their workplace because, in a world in which they have no power, they have no ability to do anything else; their only value is who they marry and their only worth is focused into that,” she adds.
‘Bizarre’ criticism
Image: Rhimes says she is thinking about moving to the UK
Rhimes agrees there is something inherently condescending about the way critics use terms like “guilty pleasure” to describe her dramas.
“There are certain people for whom the world of women will never be considered as serious or as complex or as interesting as the world of men,” she says.
Rhimes says she finds some of the reaction to her decision to reflect a diverse range of actors in Bridgerton’s cast “bizarre” after critics accused the show’s makers of “pandering to woke culture”.
Image: Bridgerton has been one of Netflix’s most popular shows. Pic: Netflix
She said: “The idea that I am writing the show looking like I look, that it wouldn’t occur to me that there should be more people in the show who look like me, I feel like that’s an obvious point. Why would I write something that doesn’t include me in any way?”
Given the thousands of episodes of drama she’s written over the years, she’s all too aware that it’s likely artificial intelligence is probably being used to scrape her scripts.
“There’s a danger of AI learning from my episodes, maybe it will learn to be better at what it does, but, most importantly, I don’t think that there’s any substitute for that germ of creativity that comes from a human imagination, I really don’t.”
As for what she enjoys watching on TV, her eyes light up when I mention having heard she’s a massive fan of a certain British sci-fi classic.
“Oh my God, I’ve loved Doctor Who forever! Forever!” she says, describing writer Russell T Davies’ work as “amazing”.
She adds: “For a while, people were like ‘what’s wrong with you?’ because they didn’t know the show. I fell in love with the David Tennant years, and I haven’t been able to let it go because of the writing.”
I ask if she’s ever considered a crossover episode.
She laughs: “I don’t know if there’s a Bridgerton meets Doctor Who…, but I would work with Russell at any time.”
US rapper Lil Nas X has been arrested and taken to hospital after being found walking in his underwear on a Los Angeles street and allegedly charging at officers and punching one.
Police said in a statement that officers responded shortly before 6am on Thursday (2pm UK time) following reports of a naked man, according to Sky’s US partner NBC News.
The LA force said that as officers went to the 11000 block of Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, the man rushed towards them.
“He was transported to a local hospital for a possible overdose and placed under arrest for battery on a police officer,” police said.
A law enforcement source confirmed to NBC News that the suspect was Montero Lamar Hill, also known as Lil Nas X.
The Old Town Road rapper punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter, according to the NBC source.
Officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress, the source said.
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A representative for Hill did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.
Actor Noel Clarke has lost his High Court libel case against the publisher of The Guardian, over a series of news articles which featured claims from a number of women.
The first article, published in April 2021, said some 20 women who knew Clarkein a professional capacity had come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct.
The 49-year-old actor, writer and director, best known for his 2006 film Kidulthood and starring in Doctor Who, sued the publisher and vehemently denied “any sexual misconduct or wrongdoing” – but the court has found Guardian News and Media (GNM) successfully defended the legal action on the grounds of truth and public interest.
Image: Noel Clarke outside court during the trial in April. Pic: PA
The meanings of all eight of the newspaper’s publications were found to be “substantially true”, the judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, said in a summary of the findings.
“I have accepted some of Mr Clarke’s evidence… but overall I find that he was not a credible or reliable witness,” she said.
In her ruling, the judge also said suggestions that more than 20 witnesses, “none of whom are parties or have a stake in this case, as [Clarke] does” had come to court to lie was “inherently implausible”.
From the evidence heard, it was “clear that women have been speaking about their experiences of working with Mr Clarke for many years”, she said.
‘A deserved victory for women who suffered’
Lucy Osborne and Sirin Kale, the journalists who carried out the investigation, told Sky News they had always been confident in everything published.
“I think that this is not a problem that’s going to go away,” said Osborne. “This kind of behaviour very much still happens in the TV and film industry and other industries. So I do hope this judgment gives other women the confidence to speak out about what they’ve experienced.”
Image: Clarke rose to fame with his 2006 film Kidulthood. Pic: PA
Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner described the ruling as “a deserved victory for those women who suffered because of the behaviour of Noel Clarke”.
She continued: “Going to court is difficult and stressful, yet more than 20 women agreed to testify in the High Court, refusing to be bullied or intimidated.
“This is also a landmark judgment for Guardian journalism, and for investigative journalism in Britain… The judgment is clear that our investigation was thorough and fair, a template for public interest journalism.”
Clarke’s response
Clarke described the result as disappointing and maintained he believes the newspaper’s reporting was “inaccurate and damaging”.
“I have never claimed to be perfect,” he said. “But I am not the person described in these articles. Overnight I lost everything.”
He said he wanted to thank witnesses who supported his case, as well as his family, “who never stopped believing there was something worth fighting for”.
What happened during the trial?
The trial took place from early March to early April 2025, hearing evidence from multiple witnesses who made accusations against Clarke, including that he had allegedly shared nude photographs of them without their consent, groped them, and asked them to look at him when he was exposed.
Clarke also gave evidence over several days. At one stage, the actor appeared visibly emotional as he claimed the publisher had “smashed my life” with its investigation.
His lawyer told the court he had been made a “scapegoat” and was an “easy target”, as a star at the height of his success when the media industry “zealously sought to correct itself” following the #MeToo movement.
The actor had been handed the outstanding British contribution to cinema award at the BAFTAs just a few weeks before the report was published. Following the article, BAFTA announced it had suspended his membership.
But lawyers for The Guardian told how newspaper’s investigation was “careful and thorough”, saying it had been carried out “conscientiously” by the journalists involved.
In March 2022, police said the actor would not face a criminal investigation over the allegations.