In a stuffy courtroom in downtown Manhattan, singer and ex-model Cassie Ventura took the witness stand and became the center of a tale that’s rocking the music industry. Now 38, Cassie opened up in raw testimony about the alleged abuse she says she suffered while she was in a relationship with music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs. In both a disturbing and deeply personal testimony that was part of an ongoing federal case against Diddy, it revealed the years of abuse Lopes says she endured at the hands of someone whom she manipulated, beat, and exploited to profit while her career and freedom suffered.
Cassie testified that their romance started in 2006 when she entered into a 10-album deal with Diddy’s Bad Boy Records. Asked how many albums she had released under that contract, she offered a one-word answer that spoke volumes: “One.”
According to Cassie, they became romantic and then toxic in 2007. What ensued, she told the court, was a pattern of violence and intimidation. Yes, it would have resulted in violence, pulling.” she said to the court. “He’d stomp on my head if I was lying down.”
That was hardly enough to be an isolated event. “Too often,” she replied when asked how frequently such abuse took place. She remembered black eyes, bruises, and terror, lots of fear.
Most of the testimony dealt with what Cassie stated were Diddy’s manipulative practices and when those practices seemed deliberately harmful. She described being forced into group sex, which Diddy allegedly called “freak-offs,” and feeling she could not say no. “I didn’t know what no could turn into,” she said as I wrote, adding that she feared retaliation. “Making him angry.”
She also told Starr Diddy sicked oral sex on her and introduced her to drugs that included ecstasy, which she says she took both intentionally and unintentionally. On one Miami trip with producer Dallas Austin and Kerry Morgan, she said they did “Blue Dolphin” ecstasy on a boat, and she had sex with Diddy. Once, she said, the drug was slipped into Gatorade.
One of the day’s more dramatic moments was when prosecutors showed surveillance video from a 2016 Los Angeles hotel. Cassie located the place and connected it to one of those “freak-off” episodes. CNN had already released the video, which prompted Diddy to apologize publicly, not to mention that he was willing to admit to any criminal activity.
The couple broke up in 2018, and Cassie has since married personal trainer Alex Fine, who appeared in court and was asked to leave during her testimony.
Diddy, now 55, has denied all criminal claims and pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and transporting people for prostitution. As the trial progresses, Cassie’s testimony offers a grimly revealing window into a public relationship and a reckoning for one of hip-hop’s most storied figures.
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