Cassie testifies that Sean 'Diddy' Combs controlled her with sex video blackmail
The R&B singer Cassie testified Wednesday that her ex-boyfriend Sean âDiddyâ Combs kept her in a cycle of abuse and exploitation by threatening to release videos of her engaging in âfreak-offâ encounters with male sex workers that he orchestrated.
Addressing the Manhattan courtroom for a second day in Combs' federal sex trafficking trial, Cassie said that even though she loathed having drugged-up sex with strangers, she couldnât reject Combsâ demands because he would make her âlook like a slut.â
âI feared for my career. I feared for my family. Itâs just embarrassing. Itâs horrible and disgusting. No one should do that to anyone," said Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura. She sued Combs in 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. The suit was settled within hours but dozens of similar legal claims followed from other women, sparking the criminal investigation against him.
Prosecutors showed the jury five still images from the sex videos, recovered from electronic devices that Cassie provided to investigators. Cassie said the images showed her with male sex workers and at various stages of the encounters, which Combs called âfreak-offs,â that sometimes lasted days. One juror's eyes widened, and another shook his head from side to side.
Prosecutors have accused Combs of exploiting his status as a powerful music executive to violently force women into drugged-up sex parties. Combs is charged with five counts, including sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion. He denies all of the allegations.
Combsâ attorneys have acknowledged Combs could be violent but maintain that the sexual acts were consensual. They say nothing he did amounted to sex trafficking or racketeering.
Combs denies all of the allegations and has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys acknowledge he could be violent, but say the sex he and others engaged in was consensual and that nothing he did amounted to sex trafficking or racketeering.
Combsâ lawyers were expected to begin cross-examining Cassie later Wednesday, when they would get the chance to challenge her credibility or poke holes in her account of what happened.
During her first day of testimony, she spent hours recounting details of her decade-long relationship with Combs, including the freak-offs which she said ended in 2017 or 2018. She also said Combs beat her numerous times. The encounters took place in private, often in dark hotel rooms, unlike Combsâ very public parties that attracted A-list celebrities.
Cassie exposes the dark side of a celebrity relationship
Cassieâs testimony is exposing the dark underside of a relationship that, for years, played out publicly in pictures of the couple smiling on red carpets and celebrity events. She said she met Combs in 2005, when she was 19 and he was 37. Combs signed her to a 10-year contract with his Bad Boy Records label. Within a few years, they started dating, Cassie said.
They were photographed in 2016 attending the premiere of the film âThe Perfect Match,â only two days after Combs beat and kicked Cassie at a Los Angeles hotel after a freak-off â an attack captured on security camera footage played on TV and in court. After the footage was leaked last year, Combs apologized. Jurors were shown photos of them at the premier.
Cassie, now 38, calm and poised after an emotional first day of testimony, said she used makeup to coverup her bruises and wore sunglasses to hide a black eye for the premiere. She said she sneaked into a popcorn closet at the movie theater to switch dresses for an afterparty so that bruises on her legs wouldnât be visible.
On another occasion in 2013, while she was packing to go to Drakeâs music festival in Canada, Cassie said Combs scuffled with her friends and threw her into a bed frame. She sustained a âpretty significant gashâ above her left eye. Combsâ security personnel brought her to a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills to get the wound stitched up, she said.
Afterward, she said she texted Combs a photo of her injured face and wrote: âSo you can remember.â Combs replied: âYou donât know when to stop. You pushed it too far. And continued to push. Sad.â
Her 2006 song âMe & Uâ went platinum, but when prosecutors asked on Tuesday what happened to her music career, Cassie testified that eventually much of her week went toward engaging in and recovering from the freak-offs, until they âbecame a job.â She left Combsâ record label in 2019.
Cassie says Combs routinely threatened to her release sex videos
She said Combs would routinely threaten to embarrass her by releasing videos of her engaging in sex acts. She said heâd do it when he was angry or to instill fear in her, like when she started dating someone else.
After a trip to the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, Combs began playing a recording of a freak-off on his laptop computer as he and Cassie sat together on a commercial flight. Cassie said Combs told her that he was âgoing to embarrass me and release them.â
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson asked if there were âpeople around youâ when Combs was playing the videos on the phone. Cassie said there were. After landing in New York, she testified, they went to dinner and then had another freak-off right afterward.
She felt âemptyâ and took drugs to cope
Also Wednesday, prosecutors showed Cassie a binder of photos and she identified 13 as male sex workers she said she recruited at Combsâ behest for encounters in Las Vegas, Miami and Los Angeles. She said she had sex with all of them, though she couldnât remember all of their names. She identified a half-dozen other sex workers in court on Tuesday.
She testified Tuesday that Combs would pay the men thousands of dollars to have sex with her for 36 or 48 hours, and the longest lasted four days. The encounters left her feeling emotionally âjust really empty, and I felt just gross.â
âIt was something I hated doing,â she said, but she endured them because she was in love with Combs and âfelt like I did my job.â
Cassie testified Wednesday she would recover by getting IV fluids, massages and having a chef cook meals. She said she developed an opioid addiction from using them after the encounters as a coping mechanism.
Combs, 55, has been jailed since September. He faces at least 15 years in prison if convicted. is expected to last about two months.