Cassie took the stand New York City’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse during ex-boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs’ trial, testifying about their relationship and her allegations against him.
The singer, 38, began her testimony on Tuesday, May 13, by describing her relationship with Diddy, 55, claiming that it was marked by violence. “There were violent arguments that would usually result in some sort of physical abuse,” she told the court. “Dragging, different things of that nature.”
After the prosecution asked Cassie how often Diddy physically assaulted her, she replied, “Too frequently.”
When asked by prosecutors to explain what a freak off was, Cassie said “it basically entails the hiring of an escort and setting up this experience so that I could perform for Sean.” She went on to claim Diddy would “actually direct us on what we were doing,” adding, “Eventually it became a job for me, pretty much.”
She noted that freak offs — which she first learned about at age 22 — made her feel “nervousness and confusion,” but she engaged in them to please Diddy because she “loved him very much.” Cassie also told the court that her ex “controlled a lot of my life,” claiming he videotaped her during sexual encounters. She feared he would use these videos for “blackmail,” adding, “He had many resources to do that. … It was always in the back of my mind that I would somehow be hurt by him.”
As her testimony continued, Cassie recalled the earliest days of her relationship with Diddy, whom she met around 2005 when she was 19. She soon signed a 10-album record deal with his label, Bad Boy.
“I wanted to be around Sean for the same reasons as everyone else at the time,” she said. “He was just this exciting, entertaining, fun guy that also happened to have, you know, my career in his hands.”
Cassie claimed that Diddy kissed her for the first time at her 21st birthday party in Las Vegas, at which point he was her boss but they were not yet dating. She told the court that she cried and ran away after the kiss because she wasn’t used to an employer acting in that way.
After the party, Cassie said Diddy began inviting her to meetings in hotel rooms, where she believed they would discuss her career. Instead, Diddy allegedly “introduced” her to oral sex and “made me feel crazy for not reciprocating” after he performed it on her for the first time. She added she was “completely sexually inexperienced” at the time and dating someone else.
According to Cassie, their romantic relationship began a fews months after she turned 21, during a trip to Miami where Diddy allegedly gave her a “blue dolphin” ecstasy pill. At this point, she believed they were monogamous, saying she felt it was her “first real adult” relationship.
Cassie went on to claim that Diddy’s moods were extreme, alleging that he would tell her she was being a “brat” and then abuse her. “Make the wrong face, and the next thing I knew, I was getting hit in the face,” she alleged. If she didn’t answer his phone calls during this period, he would allegedly call her “incessantly” or have one of his assistants or security guards track her down.
She eventually moved to Los Angeles where she had her own apartment, but she noted that Diddy lived “three minutes away” from her. She described visits from Diddy as a “stomach-in-knots moment” because she would never know his mood.
During the first part of her testimony, Cassie also discussed her music career, noting that only one album from her 10-album deal was ever released in 2006 despite her recording “hundreds” of songs. (Her early single “Me & U” hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2006.) According to her, the decision not to release this music was Diddy’s.
“The freak offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again,” Cassie continued, alleging that these parties could last anywhere from 36 hours to four days and involved having sex with “strangers” while using drugs and alcohol. With breaks, she claimed, freak offs could last even longer, and she’d then need additional time to recover from dehydration, sleep deprivation and drug use.
After a lunch break, Cassie resumed her testimony with more details about her music career, claiming that she felt “stifled” by Diddy’s control over her work. She also alleged that his control extended to her physical appearance, telling the court that he commented on it daily and made demands about how she should dress, including wanting her nails painted white. “Some days he would want me to be really sexy, and be his ‘woman’ other days,” she claimed, adding that they also discussed the possibility of her getting breast implants.
Cassie went on to testify that Diddy or members of his team would sometimes take away her electronic devices, including her phone and laptop, before giving them back eventually. “It depended on how long I was being punished for,” she alleged.
The prosecution then began questioning Cassie about some of Diddy’s business associates, including former chief of staff Kristina Khorram and former Bad Boy executive Toni Fletcher. Cassie was also asked to identify members of his security team.
She recalled one alleged incident where she was having a freak off with Diddy and one of his security guards interrupted to tell her that his longtime rival Suge Knight was at a diner nearby. Cassie claimed everyone immediately started getting ready to meet Knight, 60, and she was given a gun to put in her purse. She said this “terrified” her and alleged this was not the only time she was asked to handle a gun for Diddy.
Cassie continued her testimony with an account of her first freak off, claiming Diddy arranged for a male dancer to have sex with her early in their relationship. She alleged they took ecstasy and drank alcohol during the encounter. While she felt “dirty” afterward, she felt she couldn’t say no to more freak offs, which she said happened almost weekly after the first time and continued through 2017 or 2018.
“I didn’t want to make him upset,” she told the court. “I didn’t want to make him angry and regret telling me about this experience that was so personal.”
She again claimed that freak offs could last for days, with participants using drugs to stay awake. Cassie said she felt like Diddy became a different person during freak offs, which she said made her feel “humiliated” and “disgusting.”
“His eyes go black,” she recalled. “The version of him I was in love with was no longer there.”
Cassie said she would tell Diddy that she felt “worthless” and “horrible” because of the freak offs but claimed he was “pretty dismissive” of her concerns.
Cassie (real name Casandra Ventura) and Diddy dated on and off from 2007 to 2018. Five years later, Cassie named the now-disgraced music mogul in a November 2023 lawsuit and accused him of repeated physical abuse and sexual assault for nearly a decade. Diddy vehemently denied the allegations before settling the case out of court within a day.
“Just so we’re clear, a decision to settle a lawsuit, especially in 2023, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing,” Diddy’s attorney Ben Brafman said in a statement shared with Us. “Mr. Combs’ decision to settle the lawsuit does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims. He is happy they got to a mutual settlement and wishes Ms. Ventura the best.”
Diddy was arrested one year later on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He denied all allegations and pleaded not guilty.
“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Diddy’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo told Us Weekly in September 2024. “Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children and working to uplift the Black community. He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal.”
Before his arrest, Diddy had been indicted by a grand jury, which also cited a resurfaced video published by CNN of the rapper allegedly choking and kicking Cassie outside a hotel room in 2016.
“It’s difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life, sometimes you gotta do that,” Diddy said in a May 2024 video shared via social media, apologizing for his actions in the video. “I was f***ed up. I mean, I hit rock bottom, but I make no excuses. My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I’m disgusted.”
He added, “I went and sought out professional help. I’ve been going to therapy, going to rehab. Had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I’m so sorry, but I’m committed to being a better man each and every day. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m truly sorry.”
After the jury reviewed emails between Cassie and Diddy from 2010, the singer revealed her alleged nickname for the rap mogul — “pop pop” — which she claimed that he “made her use” because it was the name she called her grandfather.
Cassie went on to list the alleged locations of multiple freak offs, including encounters in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Ibiza and Turks and Caicos. The freak offs occurred in what Cassie testified were hotel rooms booked under pseudonyms, stocked with baby oil, Astroglide and condoms by assistants and security guards.
Diddy allegedly demanded that the baby oil be “heated” and frequently applied to Cassie in intervals to assure she would be “glistening” during encounters she described as “very choreographed” and directed by Diddy himself.
During one such alleged encounter, Cassie testified that Diddy demanded she get into a blown-up pool filled with baby oil. The pool was allegedly inside a hotel room and she claims she was told to enter fully-clothed. “At that point I couldn’t say no,” she testified. “Something that Sean wanted to happen, that’s what was going to happen.”
Cassie also detailed the aftermath of the alleged encounters, alleging that the hotel room walls and door handles would be covered in baby oil. She testified that the sheets on the hotel beds would sometimes be stained in blood because she was “expected” to engage in the alleged freak offs while menstruating.
“It was a turn-on for him,” she testified, adding that she was also urinated on by paid escorts.
When asked why she did not say “no” or refuse, Cassie testified that she “thought it was obvious that I didn’t want to do it.”
After another short break, Cassie returned to the stand to detail how she was ordered to find and hire escorts during the alleged freak offs. At the direction of Diddy, Cassie testified she used online ads through Craigslist, Backpage and a service titled Cowboys 4 Angels – another website that specifically offers male escort services once featured on the reality TV series Gigolos.
According to Cassie, the escorts were paid in cash brought by either Diddy or a member of her security team — typically $1,500 to $6,000 per alleged encounter.
Cassie testified that she was “unaware that the whole situation was illegal,” prompting the judge to instruct the jury to ignore her comment.
Cassie went on to detail the drugs she testified Diddy provided during the alleged freak offs, including ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana, ketamine, and mushrooms.
“Whatever was the drug of choice at that point,” she claimed from the stand, adding that she took the drugs allegedly provided to her as a way of “dissociating” during the sexual encounters. She added that her drug use often made her sick and like she needed to vomit.
“If we were in the freak off, he would be encouraging me to get up and continue on with it in that condition,” she testified.
After a brief recess (Cassie was offered numerous bathroom breaks throughout her testimony as she is very heavily pregnant), Cassie returned to the stand — often in very graphic detail — what occurred during the freak offs. She claimed every encounter was directed by Diddy, who she said was “controlling the whole situation.”
“I was an object being heavily objectified by men in that scenario,” she added from the stand. She testified that she would often choke after men urinated in her mouth, claimed that escorts were paid less if they ejaculated at times other than directed by Diddy and that the drugs provided were used as fuel. Diddy was frequently in the room during the freak offs or watched via FaceTime, according to Cassie.
Cassie then spoke about the assault she endured in a hotel hallway in March 2016, saying she had previously responded to a message from Diddy that she interpreted as a request for another freak off.
“If I pleased him with a freak off, then my premiere would run smoothly,” she testified, referring to her first big movie premiere scheduled to occur days later. She alleged the beating occurred during the freak off, in which Diddy allegedly gave her a black eye.
“At this point all I could think about was getting out of there safely,” she continued. “I had my premiere and I didn’t want to mess it up.”
While viewing footage — footage that was later famously published by CNN in May 2024 — of the incident in court, Cassie testified that Diddy had thrown her to the ground so many times that there were “too many to count.”
Testimony ended shortly after 5:00 pm ET. Cassie is scheduled to return to the stand on Wednesday, May 14.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support. If you or someone you know is a human trafficking victim, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
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