Diddy Ex-Girlfriend Cassie Ventura Testifies, Tells of Physical Abuse, Blackmail and Sexual Exploitation

R&B singer Cassie, a former girlfriend of Sean “Diddy” Combs, took the witness stand Tuesday to testify about her experiences with the music mogul in the ongoing, federal sex trafficking trial against him that officially began this week in New York.

Cassie, whose legal name is Cassandra Ventura, is one of four witnesses expected to testify against Combs, who is facing charges of one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and two counts of transportation to engage in prosecution. During her emotional testimony Tuesday, Cassie detailed how Combs allegedly abused, intimidated, coerced, blackmailed and sexually exploited her for years.

“If they were violent arguments, it would usually result in some sort of physical abuse and dragging, just different things,” the R&B singer said of her and Diddy’s disagreements over the years. During these arguments, Cassie claimed that Diddy would “mash me in the head, knock me over, drag me, kick me. Stomp me in the head if I was down.”

“Sean is a really polarizing person, also really charming,” she noted. “It’s hard to really be able to decide in that moment what you need when he’s telling you what he wants. I just didn’t know. I didn’t know what would happen.”

Cassie filed a lawsuit against Combs in 2023 alleging years of physical abuse, rape and sex trafficking. That case was settled in mere hours, but it was followed by an avalanche of similar lawsuits, legal complaints and investigations.

Cassie and Diddy met in 2005 when she was 19 and he was 37. They began dating not long after he signed her to his record label, Bad Boy Records.

On the witness stand, Cassie revealed that she was just 22 when Combs began pressuring her to participate in his “freak offs,” the hours-long, drug-fueled sex parties in which he watched and often recorded women, including former girlfriends like Cassie, have sex with male escorts. These “freak offs” are at the center of the prosecution’s case against Combs, which contends that he forced women to take part in them through coercion, violence and blackmail.

Cassie said she was “confused” and “nervous” when Combs first brought up his “freak offs,” but that she still “loved him very much.” Eventually, though, Cassie came to feel like her participation in the sex parties was not ultimately up to her. “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,” she explained Tuesday.

Among the pieces of evidence that the prosecution is presenting against Combs is a video released publicly last year of the rapper and music producer beating Cassie in a hotel hallway in Los Angeles in 2016. The video was played for jurors Monday. Israel Florez, who previously worked as a security officer at the hotel in question, testified Monday that he met Combs after he was called to check up on a woman in distress at the hotel.

When he went to investigate the call, Florez said he found Combs sitting with a “devilish stare.” The former security officer further testified that he turned down Combs’ offer of a stack of money in exchange for not telling anyone about the incident.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to all charges. On Monday, one of his attorneys, Teny Geragos, told jurors that her client is guilty of assaulting and getting irrationally angry with Cassie, but that “domestic violence is not sex trafficking.” His legal team has maintained that all of the “freak offs” and sexual incidents he is on trial for were conducted between fully consenting adults.

Combs has been held in a Brooklyn federal detention center since his arrest in September. If he is convicted, he could be sentenced to anything between 15 years and life in prison. His trial is expected to last at least several more weeks.

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