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

Published

13 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

Cassie Ventura finishes her evidence after days describing alleged rape and ‘hundreds’ of freak offs

Published

55 mins ago

May 17, 2025

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Cassie Ventura finishes her evidence after days describing alleged rape and 'hundreds' of freak offs

R&B star Cassie Ventura told Sean “Diddy” Combs “I’m not a rag doll, I’m someone’s child”, after he allegedly beat her outside a lift at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles in March 2016, a New York court has heard.

Footage of Combs appearing to drag and kick the R&B star in a corridor was initially released by CNN in May 2024. Combs subsequently apologised for his actions.

The footage of the incident, which Cassie says took place after she left a “freak off” sex session, has since been widely shared and has been shown to the jury in court as evidence for the prosecution.

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.

Cassie, whose full name is Casandra 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.

The 38-year-old, who is the star witness for the prosecution, faced a fourth day on the stand, with the hip-hop mogul’s defence lawyers concluding their two-day cross-examination.

Heavily pregnant, she is expecting her third child in just a few weeks.

Prosecutors say Combs exploited and used his network of employees to facilitate illegal activities, while defence lawyers have been attempting to show jurors she consented to their highly charged “swingers lifestyle”.

The court also heard further details of Cassie’s allegation of rape against Combs, information around her stay at a trauma and addiction centre in Arizona and further messages appearing to show her enthusiasm for freak offs.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial: Day 5 – As it happened

Cassie was asked about singer Chris Brown – who she denied dancing with – and tells the court Combs had form for taking her belongings, including her phone, car and watch, when he was angry with her.

An audio recording was also played to the court, appearing to show Cassie threatening a man she claimed to have a video of her at a freak off on his phone, screaming: “I will f*** you up and it won’t be my hand”.

It was not clear as to whether such a video ever existed.

Cassie was also asked about her use of drugs, and said she had struggled with opioid addiction since 2022.

She described a 45-day stay at a rehabilitation centre in Arizona in 2023, where she underwent EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) to help resolve trauma.

The centre specialises in treating “sex and intimacy issues”, but Cassie confirmed she was treated only for trauma.

The court also heard about Cassie’s allegation of rape against Combs in August or September 2018, by which time she says they had split up.

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

‘I have love for the past, what it was’

Describing Combs taking her for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Malibu, she says he raped her after driving her home, after “acting strangely” during the meal.

When asked if she believed his behaviour was due to his “bipolar disorder”, Cassie answered “yes”.

The jury was then shown a text message which included a heart emoji, sent by Cassie to Combs the following day.

When asked if she still had love for him, she said: “I have love for the past, what it was.”

Cassie confirmed she saw Combs the following month, when she said she had consensual sex with him, during which her now-husband, personal trainer Alex Fine, attempted to FaceTime her.

She said she didn’t tell Fine she had been raped by Combs at the time, but that he “punched a wall” when she later told him.

Combs paid close attention to Cassie’s cross-examination, leaning in to read transcripts on the monitor in front of him and passing down notes to his lawyer. Cassie did not look at him throughout the trial.

A ‘$10m’ settlement with the Intercontinental

Towards the end of her questioning by the defence, Cassie was read a message from Combs in September 2012, in which he asked “do you want to have our last FO [freak off] tonight?” – to which she responded, “I don’t want to freak off for the last time, I want it to be the first time for the rest of our lives”.

In a surprise turn, Cassie also confirmed that an expected settlement of $10m had been agreed with the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles, where she was assaulted.

Following her time in court, she released a statement saying she hoped her testimony would help others “heal from the abuse and fear”.

“For me, the more I heal, the more I can remember,” she said. “And the more I can remember, the more I will never forget.”

The next witness, special agent Yasin Binda, detailed items found during a search of Combs’s Park Hyatt hotel room in 2004, following his arrest that year.

She showed the court images of exhibits including lubricant and baby oil, drugs and a bum bag containing $9,000 (£6,800) in cash.

‘Hit over the head with a skillet of eggs’

At the end of the day, Dawn Richard, a former member of girl group Danity Kane and trio Dirty Money, gave evidence, telling the court she observed Combs attacking Cassie, including a time he “hit her over the head with a skillet of eggs”.

She went on to say Combs “dragged” Cassie upstairs where she “heard glass breaking”, adding she had “never seen anything” like it before – “he was punching his girlfriend”.

Richard said she didn’t intervene or report the incident to the police as she was “scared”.

The singer sued Combs last year, accusing him of physical abuse, groping and psychological abuse during her time working with him.

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

The trial is set to last for seven more weeks.

Entertainment

Salman Rushdie attacker who left author blind in one eye jailed

Published

10 hours ago

May 16, 2025

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Salman Rushdie attacker who left author blind in one eye 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

13 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.