Cassie testifies that Sean 'Diddy' Combs raped her and threatened to
release sex videos
[May 15, 2025]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) — The R&B singer Cassie testified Wednesday that Sean
“Diddy” Combs raped her when she ended their decade-long relationship,
after he locked her in a life of physical abuse by threatening to
release degrading sexual videos of her.
Addressing the Manhattan courtroom for a second day in Combs' federal
sex trafficking trial, Cassie said Combs forced his way into her Los
Angeles apartment and raped her on the living room floor after she said
she was breaking up with him.
Cassie also said she didn't feel she could refuse Combs' demands for her
to have “hundreds” of encounters with male sex workers — which he
watched and controlled for hours and even days — because he would make
her “look like a slut" if he made the videos public.
“I feared for my career. I feared for my family. It’s just embarrassing.
It’s horrible and disgusting. No one should do that to anyone," said
Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura.
Prosecutors showed the jury five still images from the sex videos on
Wednesday. Cassie said the images depicted her at various stages of the
encounters Combs called “freak-offs.” One juror’s eyes widened. Another
shook his head from side to side.
She sued Combs in 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual
abuse. Within hours, the suit was settled for $20 million — a figure
Cassie disclosed for the first time Wednesday — but dozens of similar
legal claims followed from other women.
Prosecutors accuse Combs of exploiting his status as a powerful music
executive to violently force Cassie and other women to take part in
sexual encounters. He is charged with crimes including racketeering and
sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion. Several other accusers are
set to testify.
Combs denies all of the allegations. 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 a criminal enterprise.
Combs’ lawyers were expected to begin cross-examining Cassie on
Thursday, when they will get the chance to challenge her credibility or
poke holes in her account of what happened.
Combs, 55, has been jailed since September. He faces at least 15 years
in prison if convicted. The trial is expected to last about two months.
Cassie exposes the dark side of a celebrity relationship
Cassie’s 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 “The
Perfect Match,” only two days after Combs beat and kicked Cassie at a
Los Angeles hotel — an attack captured on security camera footage. After
the footage was leaked last year, Combs apologized. Jurors were shown
that footage as well as photos of the couple at the premier.
Cassie, now 38, calm and poised after an emotional first day of
testimony, said she used makeup to cover 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 after-party so
bruises on her legs wouldn’t be visible.
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Cassie Ventura wipes tears from her eye while testifying in
Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in New York.
(Elizabeth Williams via AP)
 On another occasion in 2013, while
she was packing to go to Drake’s music festival in Canada, Cassie
said Combs scuffled with her friends and threw her into a bed frame.
She sustained a “pretty significant gash” above her left eye. Combs’
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: “So you can remember.” Combs replied: “You don’t know when to
stop. You pushed it too far. And continued to push. Sad.”
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they
have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as
Cassie has.
Combs accused of a history of violence
Cassie testified about several other violent episodes. Early in
their relationship in 2007, she said he repeatedly hit her and
knocked her to the floor of a vehicle with a blow to her head. In
2011, when he learned she started dating rapper Kid Cudi, she said
Combs lunged at her with a corkscrew and kicked her in the back.
After the 2011 attack, she said she lied to her mother at Christmas
that it was the first time Combs hit her.
“I couldn’t hurt her like that,” Cassie testified. “And it was
terrifying. It’s not normal, constantly being bruised up by the
person you love — who says they love you.”
Cassie also testified that she saw Combs pull one of her friends
back over the railing of a balcony in Los Angeles. She said she saw
him hit a different friend of hers in the head with a hammer.
Cassie said she was experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder
before ending her relationship with Combs in 2018, and was blacking
out and sleepwalking.
Cassie says she had a breakdown in 2023
Cassie testified that her life reached a climatic moment in early
2023 when she had “horrible flashbacks” as she was shooting a music
video. She said she went home after the video shoot and her two kids
were asleep but her husband was there. Cassie said she remembered
“telling him you can do this without me. You don’t need me here
anymore.”
With that, Cassie said she couldn’t take the pain anymore and “tried
to walk out the front door into traffic and my husband would not let
me.” Weeks later, she was undergoing rehab and trauma therapy.
Asked why she’s testifying at Combs’ criminal trial, she said: “I
can’t carry this anymore. I can’t carry the shame, the guilt.”
___
Associated Press journalists Julie Walker in New York and Dave
Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
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