Recap: Everything Cassie Said About ‘Freak Offs,’ Violence, Blackmail and More at Diddy Trial

As his trial began Monday, May 12, Combs has maintained his innocence against charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

If convicted on all charges, which also include arson and bribery, Combs could face a mandatory 15-year prison sentence, with the possibility of life behind bars.

After two full days of direct testimony, the defense for the beleaguered hip-hop entrepreneur got their chance to cross-examine Ventura, who is currently eight-and-a-half months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine.

Throughout her testimony, the artist, who dated Combs from 2007 to 2018, after he’d signed her to his Bad Boy Records label in 2005, was able to mostly maintain her composure, even as the content got extremely graphic at times.

Photos and video were shown to the jury, with some determined too sensitive to be shared publicly. The infamous hotel hallway assault video was shown in its entirety, which was subsequently shared publicly, as covered by TMZ.

The star witness has walked through how she and Combs first met and when things became physical and romantic between them. She’s spoken in length and detail about the notorious “freak off” sessions she says were orchestrated and directed by Combs, though she says the entire arrangement, setup, booking and all other aspects of them eventually became her “job.”

Ventura added context to what happened before, during, and after the hotel video, as well as other text, email, photos, and even public appearances where she was spotted with black eyes, bruises, and other visible injuries. And she shared her frame of mind throughout the decade she was involved with Combs.

She has dropped shocking allegations of drug usage, violence, blackmail, and even rape, while the cross-examination explores her feelings throughout for Combs, and how complicit — and perhaps even enthusiastic — she may have been in their more surprising sexual activities.

You can find what other witnesses have testified and everything else going on throughout the trial here. For everything Ventura said on the stand, keep reading…

Day 3 on Stand: Cross-Examination Begins
More Questions to Come for Cassie

Prosecutor Emily Johnson told the court she anticipates about an hour of redirect once the defense wraps up their ongoing cross-examination of Ventura.

Judge Arun Subramanian made it clear he wants to keep the case on track, telling the defense team that they should be able to wrap up their questioning on Friday. “You should be able to finish cross-examination with the balance of the trial day,” he said, with defense attorney Marc Agnifilo adding that they’ll do their “best,” but noted that there’s “no guarantee” that they’d finish in that timeframe.

Subramanian also reminded everyone that he technically has the authority to cut off cross-examination once it exceeds the length of the direct testimony. Testimony is set to resume at 9:00 a.m. ET on Friday, with Ventura returning to the witness stand.

Jealousy Went Both Ways

Ventura also addressed allegations that she had an affair with actor Michael B. Jordan.

The topic arose during cross-examination concerning her time filming Honey 3 in South Africa in 2016. Ventura confirmed that Combs believed she was romantically involved with Jordan.

Estevao, one of Combs’ attorneys, asked Ventura about her time on the set of a movie, and if the Bad Boy Records founder suspected her of having a relationship with someone in the industry.

“Mr. Combs suspected you of a relationship with whom?,” Estevao asked, with Ventura responding with Jordan’s name. She did not, however, provide any details about the nature of her relationship with Jordan, or if there was one at all.

She also testified that at the time she had seen a photo of Combs with another woman, which she said made her “angry,” with Ventura sharing that Combs had other relationships during their decade-plus together.

Physical Abuse and a Drug Problem

Ventura recounted multiple instances of alleged physical violence, including being stomped on and witnessing Combs dangle a woman off a balcony.

However, defense attorney Anna Estevao suggested that Ventura didn’t personally witness Combs dangle her friend, Bryana “Bana” Bongolan, over a balcony at Ventura’s apartment as she’s previously alleged.

“Isn’t it true you learned about this incident after the fact?” Estevao asked.

“I saw what I saw,” said Ventura — who had told the prosecution during her testimony Thursday that she woke up to find Combs holding her friend over her balcony railing before throwing her onto the patio furniture.

Estevao asked Ventura if she was on drugs that night. Ventura testified she couldn’t remember if she’d done drugs before falling asleep earlier that day, but that drugs were very much a part of their relationship with Ventura experiencing the side effects of prolonged ketamine use, and Combs reportedly overdosing on painkillers in February 2012.

Ventura said that on that day, they had a “freak off” and had gone to a sex club before Combs went to a party at the Playboy Mansion without her. She said it wasn’t until later that night after taking him to the hospital that she learned he’d experienced an overdose.

“From what he told me, he took a very strong opiate that night, but we didn’t know what was happening, so we took him to the hospital,” she claimed.

As for rumors that drugs were in the baby oil used during the “freak offs,” Ventura maintained that they were not, after defense Estevao asking her to confirm the Johnson’s baby oil they used during sex sessions was never laced with anything.

The defense attorney also asked her to confirm that filling a baby pool would take a lot of baby oil and might explain why Combs was keeping lots of baby oil on hand.

‘Freak Offs’ Evolution and Who Knew

A topic hit from a few different angles during the defense’s cross-examination of Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura was the couple’s “freak offs,” which usually involved a paid escort. Ventura had expressed that she grew to dislike the sessions, which she came to see as “work” during direct testimony.

When asked if they were an important part of her relationship with Combs, Ventura said, “It was an integral part.” In an email from 2009, Ventura called them the next stop in their relationship, but emphasized a need to “feel safe.”

“In order for me to be more open with the things we do in bed, I need to feel safe, like home…like this is my husband, and this is the only man that will ever have this aggressive sexual side of me,” Ventura wrote in the email, per CNN.

“The last time was a mistake but since has made me feel a little dirty and grimy as opposed to sexual and spontaneous,” she wrote, according to NBC News’ coverage. “That’s the only reason why I go back and forth in my mind with wanting and not wanting to do it.”

“When we used to freak off when we were so in love there were no questions asked, it felt right. Like it literally made sense for the next step in our sex life together,” she continued, expressing that as time went on, she felt less “love,” and thus began to feel differently about “freak offs” in general.

The defense showed texts, though, that appeared to express Ventura’s enthusiastic interest in them. In one exchange from August 2009, when Combs asked her when she wanted to “freak off,” Ventura replied, “I’m always read to freak off.”

Media outlets have reported that many of the text exchanges, which Cassie had to recite in court, were extremely graphic regarding examples of what she wanted to do. According to ABC7, defense attorney Anna Estevao had Ventura read her messages, while Estevao read Combs’.

“At the time you were afraid that you were being treated as someone who he could just get his fantasies off with?” asked Estevao. “That was a concern,” Ventura agreed. She had hoped that their relationship would “develop more,” as Estevao put it.

She said that while she and Combs enjoyed open communication, it felt that when it came to talk about genuine emotions, it was “usually a one-way street.”

Ventura has expressed multiple times on the stand that she did not tell people about these “freak off” encounters, nor did she believe Combs’ staff necessarily knew everything about them.

She testified that his assistants would sometimes set up the hotel rooms beforehand, but she has no recollection of a staff member ever being in the room while one was happening. She said she “definitely didn’t” want them to know, nor did she ever tell her friends about it.

Falling for Diddy

The defense’s cross-examination of Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura began Thursday morning with an exploration of their feelings for one another. After two days of brutal details of alleged sexual and physical abuse, not to mention psychological torment and blackmail, the defense was attempting to establish emotional connection and possible willingness on Ventura’s part in at least some of these activities, like those infamous “freak offs.”

When asked by defense attorney Anna Estevao what made her fall in love with Combs in the first place, Ventura confessed she hadn’t “thought about it in a while,” according to CNN reporting.

“The beginning of the relationship was really … fast, fast-paced, scary but the more time I spent with him and got to know him, his real personality — at least what I thought was his real personality — and I liked what it was,” she explained.

She said she liked that he was “very sweet” and “attentive,” while also appreciating him having “a charismatic big personality that everyone really loved.”

Supporting evidence for this included texts and emails exchanged between the two which the defense shared in court. In one such exchange, Combs wrote, “It makes me so happy that you would fly to ATL just to see me. I’m a very lucky man, I love you, I miss you, can’t wait to hold you.”

To this, Ventura responded, “I’m a very lucky woman. I miss you so much. I’d fly wherever you needed me, whenever. I love you.” In a message from 2008, she wrote, “I love you sooo much,” while another the following year read, “I love you sooooo much it makes me cry.”

The jury saw declarations of love, as well as insecurity, as Ventura admitted she would get frustrated, wanting more time with Combs. In one message, she wrote, “I haven’t talked to you AT ALL, I know you can take 3 minutes out of your day to talk to me and you don’t even try. You’re in too much of a rush to get me off of the phone. That’s not being in a relationship with someone that you love and are in love with.”

When asked if it “really hurt” when Combs would cheat on her, Ventura replied, “I would say not every time.” She said that hurt feelings was something that occurred more in the earlier stages of their relationship.

Estevao suggested that Ventura wanted to make Combs happy in their relationship — “And to make him happy, you told him that you wanted to do ‘freak offs’?” she asked. “Yes, at the time, I wanted to make him happy,” Ventura replied, per NBC News. But she also said, “There’s a lot more to that.”

ABC7 noted that the prosecution was “objecting frequently” as cross-examination got underway, but the judge rejected many of these, “appearing to be giving the defense some breathing room in the early stages.”

Day 2 on Stand: Direct Testimony Concludes
Why She’s Testifying

Court wrapped Wednesday afternoon with Cassie Ventura concluding her direct testimony. She will be back for cross-examination on Thursday. She told jurors she had come forward to “to do the right thing” and to rid herself of “the shame” and “guilt” she has carried all these years.

“I can’t carry this anymore, the shame the guilt, what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong,” she said. “People aren’t disposable.”

She had shared that as part of her therapy and personal healing, she’d written a book about her experiences with the aid of her mother that she’d wanted Combs to read so he could “understand” the “pain he put me through.”

Despite sending the book to Combs’ team, she finally heard back from them that the book “wasn’t taken seriously.”

Ventura also testified that she’d “wanted to be compensated for the many, many years. And the pain.” That’s what precipitated her 2023 civil suit against Combs where she accused him of rape and years of physical abuse. Combs has denied these allegations. 24 hours after they were filed, Ventura revealed that they settled and she received $20 million from Combs and his companies.

Cassie Alleges Rape

Thinking she was going to have a “closure conversation,” Cassie Ventura testified in court that she met with Combs for a dinner in 2018. She was at this time seeing the man who would become her now-husband.

She described Combs as playful and romantic at dinner before he offered to drive her home. CNN reports that Ventura paused for a period of time on the witness stand, before continuing, “And then he raped me in my living room.”

“I just remember crying and saying ‘no,’ but it was very fast,” she said on the stand. She doesn’t know if Combs noticed her crying. She did concede that they had had one more voluntary sexual encounter after that, and that they had had “a few check-ins” after that: “just checking in, sending love, nothing crazy.”

When asked why she would willingly have sex with him after rape, Ventura replied, per Variety, “We had been together for over 10 years. You don’t just turn feelings off that way.” She said the last time they were in a room together before this trial was at Kim Porter’s funeral in 2018.

She testified that Combs nevertheless continued to threaten her even after their relationship had ended, including asking to be reimbursed as the man she would go on to marry, Alex Fine, was her former personal trainer, meaning he was on Combs’ payroll.

“If I was you, I would get me my money,” Combs wrote her in a message from 2019 read out in court. When she pushed back at all, Combs messaged in all caps, “YOU WILL NOT BE THREATENING ME.”

She said he went on to say she had “too many iPads full of skeletons,” but she defiantly countered, “Do you want me to tell the truth? It’s way deeper than iPads.”

In court, she told the jury, “There was way more than ‘freak offs.’ There was abuse, there was many things that happened over our relationship.”

She said that it took her years to begin to overcome what she’d gone through, including going to rehab and getting clean from drugs, as well as attending trauma therapy in 2023. She said she was suffering from flashbacks and suicidal ideation.

“I didn’t want to be alive anymore at that point,” a tearful Ventura said in court, per CNN. “I couldn’t take the pain that I was in anymore, and so I just tried to walk out the front door into traffic and my husband would not let me.”

Abuse of Other People

Cassie Ventura said that she was not only a victim of abuse at the hands of Combs, which she claims was witnessed by many members of his staff, but she also witnessed him allegedly abusing others, including employees.

She said that she once witnessed him punching someone in the head. On another occasion, she saw him allegedly drag his assistant, “Mia,” out of her bed and onto the deck outside of her room after he’d resisted him trying to take her phone.

In another alleged incident, Ventura said she woke up to Combs holding her friend over the balcony railing at her Los Angeles apartment. “I saw him bring her back over the railing of the balcony and then throw her onto the patio furniture,” she testified. Ventura said she is still friends with this alleged victim.

Another friendship, however, purportedly ended after a physical altercation with Combs in 2018. “He came in, saw that we were going to do drugs, and he hit [her] in the head with a hanger,” Ventura said, adding that the hanger was wooden.

Diddy Staff Reactions

In her testimony Wednesday, Cassie Ventura said that members of Combs’ staff had witnessed him allegedly abusing her, and that some told her they had quit after witnessing it.

She further said that after each incidence of violence, she never saw any injuries on Combs, but she would have to recover for days afterward, usually hiding out in a hotel room. “Any time he was physical, there would at least be some trace,” she said, per CNN, “a bruise or something.

One incident detailed occurred in 2015, during which Ventura said she was beaten by Combs in one room while he hosted a party in an adjoining room. “He punched me, kicked me, I was trying to run away and I made it into the bathroom,” saying she hid under the toilet.

Members of Combs’ security and management teams finally came into the room, she said, where they saw her with “black eyes” and “golf-ball sized knots” on her forehead.” She said the sight of her led one of the security guards to start crying.

She said that she had to stay at his home almost a week after this incident to recover. At one point, Combs saw the extent of her injuries on FaceTime, per Ventura’s testimony, and told her to put more makeup on so his son wouldn’t see them.

Kid Cudi Threats

Turning to an email Cassie Ventura purportedly sent to her mother in 2011, the jury saw the message where Ventura wrote that Combs had threatened to release “explicit sex tapes” of her, including one on Christmas Day.

In that same email, Ventura also wrote that Combs had threatened to “hurt” both her and Scott Mescudi (a.k.a. Kid Cudi), who she was dating at the time. Per the email, he said he would hurt them, but not by his own hands. Instead, Combs purportedly threatened that he would be out of the country when it happened.

Ventura testified that Combs had learned of her relationship with Mescudi during a “freak off” in 2011, allegedly lunging at her with a wine opener when he found out.

She said that she managed to escape that hotel room, making her way to another hotel she’d been staying at and made contact with Mescudi via a burner phone, asking him to come pick her up. When she tried to smooth things over with Combs, she said he made threats about releasing “freak off” videos and threats against her and Mescudi.

Combs threatened to blow Mescudi’s car up, she testified, saying she wanted his friends to see it explode in his driveway. On January 9, 2012, Mescudi’s Porsche did explode as the result of an incendiary device, as reported by multiple media outlets over the years, including Rolling Stone.

The testimony echoes what Ventura said in a civil suit on the matter. Representatives for Mescudi told The New York Times in 2023 of her account, “This is all true.”

After that incident, Ventura testified that the three of them had a meeting about her relationship with Mescudi. But when Mescudi asked about his vehicle, Combs allegedly replied, “What vehicle?” Ventura testified that the meeting ended after that.

She had previously said that her mother had gotten word of the violent incident where Combs’ security allegedly chased her down and asked if that was about her and she had lied.

“I didn’t tell my mom the truth because I was ashamed, but I also felt like at that point I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Ventura said on the stand, per CNN. “I didn’t want to put my mother in danger of knowing anything of that magnitude.”

Later, she said she finally did go see her mother after one beating and had her mother take photos of the bruises on her lower back and butt, along with wounds on her right thigh. She said she’d told her mother “this was the first time,” and she did not tell her about the “freak offs.”

She also said during this break that she called off her relationship with Mescudi over Combs’ threats, saying there was “too much uncertainty if we continued to see each other” as Combs had allegedly said “he was going to hurt the both of us.”

Cassie’s Abuse Begins

In testimony Wednesday afternoon, Cassie Ventura recalled what may have been the first instance, saying it left her “shocked” and “angry” as it appeared to come out of nowhere. According to Ventura’s testimony, it began after she saw Combs flirting with another woman in a restaurant somewhere around 2007 or ’08.

When another woman reportedly clocked Ventura noticing, she said she just shrugged her shoulders. Afterward, when they were in the car, Ventura said Combs abruptly “hit me in the side of my head and I fell to the floor of the [vehicle].”

“He shook me up and scared me quite a bit,” she continued, per NBC News. “So I got out of the car, I was shocked, I didn’t understand what happened and why he was so angry.” Ventura said that Combs’ driver and security were both present for this alleged inicident.

“I was just shocked, and I didn’t necessarily understand what happened and why he was so angry except for the little bit he said as he was hitting me in the car,” Ventura continued. “I just went home and kind of hid out after that.”

Violence and Permanent Scar

In another alleged incident, Ventura said it began at a part in LA when Combs called her name. Drunk at the time, Ventura said she responded by punching him in the face. She said in court that this prompted Combs to beat her and stomp on her face as she lied on the floor of his vehicle.

After making it to the house, Ventura said she jumped out of the car and tried to run down the street, only to be stopped by his security — who had chased her — and brought back home.

She said that when she finally looked at her face in the mirror, she couldn’t even recognize herself, describing it as “just knots and bleeding, swollen everything. I looked horrible.”

Following this incident, Ventura said that Combs told her she would need to “sneak out of the house” with security to go stay at a hotel, which she said she did “covered up, because no one could see me like that.” She had wanted to stay at his home to recover, but said he wouldn’t allow it.

As for why she did not leave, Ventura said it was a combination of not feeling it would be “safe” to do so, and not having the means. “I didn’t have the resources I needed to get out and move, to get out and not have anybody stop me,” she explained. “I understood Sean’s capabilities, his access to guns, and the threats that he made prior to that.”

A third incident occurred, according to Ventura, when she attended a Prince party without telling Combs only to then spot him there. She said he later “burst” into her hotel room and attacked her: “He beat me up in that room. He was throwing luggage at me, just calling me all kinds of names.”

In a later moment, a text from Ventura to Combs was revealed where she wrote, “You treat me like you Ike Turner.”

“He was abusive and controlling. I mean, he was actually physically abusive. He put me down a lot. As much as I was built up, I was put down quite a bit,” she explained on the stand. “It’s also the just sheer embarrassment, like, how he treated me in front of other people.”

She detailed an encounter where he allegedly gashed her face in 2013 leaving a permanent scar. “Sean came in. I was asleep. He was trying to attack me. We went into the master bedroom. My friends were jumping on his back trying to stop him.”

“I cut my eyebrow on the corner of the bed. Sean threw me onto the bed frame. I had a significant gash. I didn’t go to the ER; it was a Sunday. Sean had security take me to a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills.”

The incident left her with a permanent scar on her eyebrow, which she pointed at for the jury, adding, “I cover it with makeup.”

She said she texted him a photo of the injury after, “so you can remember.” She added to the jury that at “the very least, I just wanted him to be sorry about it.”

“You dont know when to stop you have pushed it too far,” Combs reportedly replied, to which she sent back, “Just say sorry, I dont know why i deserve that you could care less if i was ok.”

‘Freak Off’ Blackmail, Fears

Ventura said she was perhaps even more concerned about anyone finding out about them, or getting their hands on any of the footage. She had previously testified removing such video and photographic evidence from her phone, and shared texts asking Combs to do the same.

She said that he told her he had, but she would sometimes find some of that content still in existence. In one instance, she said that left her feeling “trapped,” Ventura said she spotted Combs watching one of the videos on a commercial flight from Cannes in 2013.

This was after an argument they had purportedly had where he accused her of stealing drugs from him and kicked her off of a friend’s boat. She said at a Cannes Film Festival event he gave her “evil glares” and “would grab my leg and like squeeze my thighs tight as he could, and I was wearing a beaded dress, so it was really painful.”

On the plane afterward, Ventura said Combs “pulled up ‘freak off’ videos on his laptop that I thought were deleted. He was showing them with other people around. I said, ‘You are embarrassing me.’ I was scared, I felt trapped, how do you get out of this situation? I felt trapped.”

According to Ventura, Combs told her “that he was going to embarrass me and release them.” It wasn’t the only time he would remind her that he had these videos when he was upset with her, according to NBC News, threatening to release them.

Ventura told the jury Combs would make these threats “usually when he was angry about something or just really wanted me to fear.” She said that one time he was jealous of her dating another man and threatened to “put out two embarrassing videos.”

Another example of that, according to Ventura, came on said birthday when she refused to leave a party with her friends for a “freak off.” She called these threats “horrible and disgusting,” adding, “No one should do that to anyone.”

“It could ruin everything I worked for, make me look like a slut,” she testified. “I wasn’t supposed to be on those videos. I didn’t want to be in them.”

In March 2014, according to Ventura’s testimony, she got word that a sexually explicit video of her had leaked, saying, “Immediately my thoughts went to a ‘Freak Off’ video,” per CNN.

When she shared what she’d learned with Combs, Ventura said he told her to find out everything she could about it, including what the room looked like in the video. “You gotta tell him this is your life, this is serious,” she said Combs told her.

‘Freak Offs’ Impact Health

Describing how much she disliked participating in “freak offs,” Cassie Ventura said on the stand Wednesday that she was often fueled by ketamine, “because it was the most dissociative.” She said that she even tried to get out of one for her 29th birthday, but ultimately relented when Combs would not back down.

She further shared that she had regular gastrointestinal issues, mouth sores, and urinary tract infections from the “freak off” encounters, and often during “freak offs.”

“I tried to flush it out with water. I got to the point where CIPRO (an antibiotic) didn’t work anymore. It was a mess,” she testified, per NBC News. “It was really painful for a long time. I can’t believe I actually dealt with that.”

She testified that recovery from a “freak off” often involved the use of IV fluids, massages, and opiates. “Opiates made me feel numb, which is why I relied on them so heavily,” Ventura said, per CNN.

Ventura said that she would feel “empty” after a “freak off.” “I definitely felt just gross,” she told the jury, and that it would be worse if she didn’t stay with Combs after, like, “Okay I did my job and now I’m going about the rest of my life. The same feelings over and over.”

Opiate usage became a crutch for Ventura, who admitted, “I had an addiction to opiates, so I would take pills to come down. I wanted to feel numb and not know what was going on in my mind.”

After Viral Hotel Video

Focusing on the viral 2016 hallway video from the InterContinental Hotel, Cassie Ventura shared details about what happened in the immediate aftermath of her exiting the scene and leaving Diddy there, as seen in the newly-released unedited footage, detailed by TMZ.

Ventura said that she took an Uber back to her apartment after the presence of a security guard (now LAPD officer), Israel Florez, enabled her to get her things and leave the hotel. She then shared a list of texts she says she received from Diddy after she left.

As detailed by CNN, those messages included: “Call me,” “Yo pls call me,” “I got six kids,” “Pls call me,” “Yo pls Im surrouned,” “Call me,” “For my kids help.” She testified that she told him to “put the robe on,” as he was still in the towel seen in video footage, “because he was running around in a towel, and I was just looking out.”

She also detailed two selfies shown in court from after the hotel altercation where she said she had a “fat lip” and “black eye” underneath her sunglasses.

Back at home, a friend did contact police, but Ventura said she declined to say who had assaulted her, “so they left.” When asked why she would defend Combs, Ventura testified, “Just in that moment, I didn’t want to hurt him that way. It was just too much going on.”

According to her testimony, Combs reached out to her with a message she did respond to: “Call me the cops are here you’re going to abandon me all alone,” Combs purportedly wrote. Ventura responded to him, “I have a black eye and a fat lip. You are sick for thinking it’s okay to do what you’ve done please stay far away from me.”

Ventura said that she was concerned because she had a movie premiere that night to attend.

Later that day, she testified that Combs arrived at her apartment and was “banging, kicking, yelling,” trying to get in, which she described in court as “pretty normal” behavior for him.

The jury was then shown photos of Ventura from the premiere, where she had some visible injuries on her body. She was wearing sunglasses to hide her black eye, telling jurors, “I had bruises on my body that weren’t completely covered by the makeup. I had quite a bit of makeup on my face.”

Why Cassie Didn’t Fight Back

Continuing to explore the viral InterContinental Hotel assault video from 2016, prosecutor Emily Johnson revisited Cassie Ventura’s comments from Day 2, where she said she did not fight back against Combs.

She explained that while there were times she did try to fight back when Combs would allegedly hit her, this was more often in the beginning of their relationship. She said that she “learned that it could escalate the fight more and make it worse for myself.”

On the stand, Ventura said that when she would fight back, it would make Combs “more violent, make him stronger, make him want to push me harder in that situation.”

Day 1 on Stand: Direct Testimony Begins
Cassie Details Hotel Video

Sharing her side of the viral 2016 video from the InterContinental hotel, Cassie Ventura said that what was seen on the video is what happened after she’d tried to leave a “freak off” before it was “over,” per CNN. She said that “it got violent and I chose to leave.”

As seen in the video, Combs followed her into the hallway. “He grabbed me up, threw me on the ground, kicked me, tried to drag me back to the room, took my stuff,” Ventura said on the stand.

She explained that this “freak off,” which occurred on March 5, 2016, was the same day as her first movie premiere, so she didn’t want to compromise herself before that.

“I’m not sure what happened, but I got hit by Sean and I had a black eye, and at that point all I could think about was getting out of there safely,” she recalled on the stand. “I had my premiere, I didn’t want to mess it up, so I left.”

She said that the escort seen by security was in a separate room from where she was allegedly hit. She said that she fled the room while Comb was still in the shower, putting her shoes in her bag because it was faster.

When asked by the prosecution how many other times Combs had beat her, Ventura replied, “Too many to count. I don’t know.”

Earlier in her testimony, she said of Combs, “I didn’t want him to be upset or not trust me. He was a scary person, he would be violent.”

Detailing ‘Freak Offs’

Cassie Ventura told the jury that there was a similar pattern to “freak offs,” per CNN’s reporting. “It was established pretty early on in doing the Freak Offs that Sean enjoyed a lot of conversation and describing,” she said of Combs.

She went on to say that it generally started with “oil and touching,” before moving on to oral sex and ultimately sexual intercourse. She said she would often ask him if they could move into the next stop to speed up the process.

She said that he began to record these sessions “pretty early on, in the first year,” at first on a video camera, and later on both of their electronic devices.

She said she would delete the ones on her devices as she found them “humiliating” and “disgusting,” and asked him to delete his, as well, in part because she knew his staff members had access to his devices. “I never wanted anyone to ever see me like that,” she testified.

She said that she would use “marijuana, ketamine, mushrooms, whatever was the drug of choice at that point” to get through the experience, per NBC News. “I couldn’t imagine myself doing any of that without having some sort of buffer,” she explained.

According to her testimony, Combs would urge her to continue even if she got sick or vomited, and while she was on her period. She said that he had an escort urinate on her because it was a “turn on” for him, and that he participated, as well.

“It was too much,” she said. “”I choked, I didn’t want to be doing that, I was in a position I couldn’t easily get out of. I eventually put my hands up and Sean saw and told him to stop.”

When asked why she didn’t just say no, Ventura explained, “I was squeamish immediately, but high in the moment. That’s about it, you don’t have a lot of control at that moment.”

Ventura also explained the baby oil angle, saying that Combs was very into it. “Sean wanted it heated and he wanted it to be glistening so we applied every five minutes,” she said, noting they would pour it over the bodies of everyone involved.

She detailed an experience at the Montage Beverly Hills where he requested her to get into a “pool filled with baby oil” during a “freak off.”

“If Sean wanted it to happen, that was what was going to happen, there was no way around it,” she said. “We used 10 bottles of baby oil, regular size.”

Male Escorts for ‘Freak Offs’

Cassie Ventura returned to the stand after a short break before testifying that Combs tasked her with the job of finding escorts to partake in the “Freak Offs,” per CNN.

She recalled having to search for men of a specific look and body type before having to show Combs for approval. She revealed that she found potential men through ads on Craiglist and Backpage through Comb’s direction.

“I’d usually show them to Sean and see if that person was of interest for a ‘Freak Off,'” Ventura said, per CNN. “I definitely had to show him.”

She said she would also contact dancing or stripping services. According to Ventura’s testimony, the chosen male escorts were paid between $1,500 and $6,000 at the end of the session. Combs would give her the cash and then she gave it to the escorts.

If an escort had not been used by Combs in the past, Ventura said she was required to clarify the person was not a cop. Prosecution then showed photos of some of the escorts that had been used in “Freak Offs.” She then testified that some of the escorts were used i multiple states and that their travel was sometimes coordinated by her, per CNN. The escorts were allegedly referred to as new staff members when discussing their arrangements with Combs’ travel agent.

Diddy Being in ‘Control’

Control over her career began to be “control over what I was doing over every minute of the day,” Cassie Ventura testified in court on Tuesday. She said that Combs would constantly check on her, and even assign her “busy work” toward projects that would never be released.

“I think busy work, just the way I interpreted it, was just control,” she testified, per CNN. She said that he would have his team keeping constant tabs on her, ringing her incessantly if she didn’t respond, and even sometimes send someone to her home to check on her.

She said that during her time with him, she recorded hundreds of songs, with only a few ever getting released. She said that her career was stifled after she signed a 10-record deal, and went on to only release one.

During this time, Combs moved to Los Angeles to be closer to his kids, and so Ventura said she followed him west, “because I was in love and I wanted to be near him.”

She said he paid her rent in New York and Los Angeles, and held a key that he used “whenever he wanted.”

First Sexual Encounter

According to Cassie Ventura, her first sexual encounter with Combs was while she was high on drugs and on a boat in Miami. She testified in court on Tuesday, “I was drinking wine, then started to take drugs, a blue dolphin ecstasy pill,” which she said Combs gave her.

“I had never taken it before. I was just out of it, laughing, didn’t know what it was until a little bit later,” she said, saying the drugs made her feel “euphoric” and as if she was “just really high, sensitive to touch and all of your senses.”

She said that the relationship shifted to becoming more intimate after this, though they were not public about it as Combs was still in a relationship with Kim Porter at the time.

She also testified, “Sean Combs had many girlfriends,” though for a time, she believed it was just her. She said they kept it quiet because she was signed to his label, and because of his family.

“He just didn’t want it to look bad, but also knew it was because of his children and personal things like his family,” Ventura explained. Ultimately, she said that she and Combs were involved “for a little over ten years,” per CNN.

Ventura testified that she went from “enamored” by his personality and lavish lifestyle to more wary when she began to “experience a different side of him, which was his abusive side.”

She said that he would experience dramatic mood swings, and sometimes lash out even if she wasn’t the reason he was in a bad mood. “Make the wrong face and the next thing I knew I would get hit in the face,” she said. “He would say, ‘Watch your mouth.'”

She said that some of the arguments would lead to physical abuse. “He would smash me in my head, knock me over, drag me, kick me, stomp me in the head if I was down,” she testified, per CNN, answering “too frequently” when asked how frequently it would occur.

How Cassie Met Diddy

On the stand, Cassie Ventura spoke about first meeting Combs, when she was a 19-year-old aspiring artist who’s just signed with his Bad Boy Records label. They’d signed a 10-album deal, she said, but she would only release one album with Bad Boy in 2006.

“He was a larger-than-life musician, a fan of music, didn’t know too much about him personally,” she said on the stand.

Things took a shift in their relationship, according to Ventura, when he kissed her in the bathroom in Las Vegas, where she was celebrating her 21st birthday.

“I was confused, I was a new artist that didn’t know the lay of the land and things like that,” Ventura testified, per NBC News. She said she hadn’t wanted to kiss him that day, citing their 17-year age gap.

“I wasn’t used to an executive or anyone being that forward that way with me, in a more than friends way, a sexual way, a romantic way,” she continued. “I remember running out and back to my hotel and telling someone about it.”

Ventura went on to testify how the relationship evolved over subsequent meetings at the Trump Hotel to discuss her career.

“I wanted to be around Sean for the same reasons as everyone else at the time — just this exciting, entertaining, fun guy that also happened to have my career in his hands,” she testified, per CNN. “It felt special because not a lot of people got that time with him.

In these, she alleged Combs introduced her to the idea of receiving oral sex, going so far as to give it to her. She said she did not reciprocate.

“He made me feel crazy for not reciprocating, at the time I did not understand that kind of relationship and I was in a relationship with someone else,” Ventura argued.

“I was just so young and did not have the vocabulary for some of the things we talked about. I was just trying to understand it, just completely inexperienced at that point.”

She also noted she was still in a relationship at that point, as was Combs.

Cassie’s Opening Remarks

Considered the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case against Combs, ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura took the stand for the first time on Tuesday morning. She was almost immediately asked to identify the hallway from the viral video of Combs attacking her.

Ventura said, per NBC News’ reporting, “That’s me and Sean, InterContinental, Century City. We were having an encounter, we call it a ‘freak off.'”

When asked to define the phrase “freak off,” Ventura explained that it was a sexual encounter Combs first proposed within the first year of their relationship. In it, she would “perform” for him with a third party, usually a hired escort, “and he would direct us in what we were doing.”

She said that Combs did the hiring at first for the “freak offs,” but this eventually became her responsibility. She described it as a “job,” saying she had to book everything and felt she had little time for anything else. According to TMZ, she stated the longest “freak off” as lasting four days.

She also said that she didn’t particularly enjoy the encounters, but went along with them to please Combs.

“I was 22 at the time, my stomach churned, didn’t have a concept of how that would be a turn on but I accepted the responsibility,” Ventura testified, per NBC News. “I was confused, nervous, but also loved him very much and wanted to make him happy.”

“It wasn’t something that I wanted to be doing especially as regularly as it became,” she explained. “But again, I was in love and wanted to make him happy. At some point, I felt I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“I didn’t know what ‘no’ could turn into,” she said, claiming that at this point, Combs was controlling a lot of her life, including “career, the way I dressed, everything,” per ABC7.

“And I just didn’t feel like I had much say in it at that time, being really super young, naive, total people pleaser,” she added, per CNN. She testified that she feared he might get “upset enough to be violent or not want to be with me at all.”