Diddy's Daughters 'Being The Only Ones' To Leave Courtroom During Graphic Testimony Sparks Debate
Sean "Diddy" Combs' daughters, Chance, D'Lila, and Jessie Combs, were forced to exit the courtroom during graphic testimonies amid the hip hop mogul's trial.
The reaction from the young ladies has since sparked a conversation on social media, with netizens comparing their response to that of the rapper's sons.
Sean "Diddy" Combs' ex Cassandra "Cassie" Ventura also gave her testimony and claimed that the embattled rapper beat and humiliated her.
Diddy's family has put up a united front in supporting him during his ongoing criminal trial.
His mom, Janice Combs, sons Quincy, Justin, and Christian, as well as daughters Chance and twins D'Lila and Jessie, have all been in court since the trial began on May 12, making sure he doesn't feel alone as he attempts to prove his innocence.
The "Finna Get Loose" rapper faces charges of racketeering, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution and could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted on the top charge.
However, just how much the rapper's children can take is in doubt, as his daughters, Chance, D'Lila, and Jessie Combs, all had to excuse themselves at some point while witnesses gave their testimony.
In one instance, male escort Daniel Philip, while recounting their sexual encounters, described how he had sex with Cassie while Diddy was "sitting in a corner masturbating" as he watched.
"We ended up having sex, rubbed baby oil on each other for a couple minutes," Phillip told jurors, per NBC News, noting Diddy was "sitting in a corner m-sturbating."
The girls seemingly missed out on attending Wednesday's session as they weren't seen entering the courtroom when Diddy's trial began, per the Daily Mail.
Diddy's daughters' reaction to the sex worker's graphic testimony has since gone viral on X, with many noting how much it must impact the young women.
One X user said in a viral post, "The daughters being the only ones walking out of the courtroom when the male escort took the stand SAID ALOT."
They further noted, "Seeing female family members distance themselves physically or emotionally on the first day of a trial involving trafficking and abuse towards women carries weight. It can subtly underscore the seriousness of the accusations or show further internal family disagreement."
Another person argued that while the girls left during an escort's testimony, they were present during Cassie's and even "stared her down."
They wrote, "What does it say about them that during today's testimony—while being shown a video of Diddy beating Cassie's a-s—they were more focused on staring her down than showing any sign of remorse or concern?"
One more person slammed the rapper's sons and mother, commenting: "[Their] grandma & brothers are trash!! Their whole family let the girls in that family down."
Diddy's ex gave her testimony and said the Bad Boy Records founder subjected her to a series of physical and emotional abuse.
During the May 12 trial session, prosecutors played a 2016 hotel surveillance footage where Diddy can be seen violently hitting and kicking her along the alley.
People Magazine reported that his daughters remained in court this time but didn't watch the video; instead, they looked straight on, while his sons watched.
In her testimony on May 13, Cassie said that the particular incident occurred after she tried to leave a "freak off," which she describes as a sexual encounter between her and a male escort on Diddy's request.
"I chose to leave," she told jurors, per NBC News. "I got out and Sean followed me into the hallway, and grabbed me, shoved me to the ground, kicked me, and dragged me back to the room and took my stuff."
Cassie alleged that after Combs pushed her to the ground in the hallway, she stayed down because "she didn't want him to do any more damage than he had already done."
Diddy's trial is guaranteed to include names of other celebrities and associates, as his influence in the music industry is well defined.
In her testimony on Wednesday, prosecutors questioned Cassie about an incident involving Diddy's business rival Suge Knight, CEO of Death Row Records. According to the Daily Mail, she narrated how Diddy left her during a "freak off" in his L.A. home to confront Knight at the popular Mel's Drive-In diner.
"R-Rock came in and said Suge was down at a diner. Sean drove over there.... I cried, said don't do something stupid," Cassie said. "It was like I wasn't even there. They put on a bunch of black clothes, went in the safe, grabbed guns."
"Next thing I knew, they were in the SUV just whipping down there. I saw them get dressed and leave the house," she noted.
Diddy and Knight's beef became pronounced in the mid-'90s as rappers from the East and West Coast became entangled in heated battle.
Cassie may be stripped of her support system as Diddy's lawyers moved a motion to ban her husband, Alex Fine, from court while she testifies because they may want to call him up as a witness later in the trial.
Fine, who was originally Diddy's personal trainer, married Cassie about a year after she was last seen with the "I'm Coming Home" rapper. The couple already has two kids and is currently expecting their third, as Cassie is heavily pregnant while giving her testimony.
According to the Daily Mail, the defense said Fine has relevant information about an alleged rape of Cassie by Diddy in 2018, adding that Fine sent Diddy a text message saying he "wanted to beat the f word out of him."
A judge ruled that Fine can stay for most of his wife's testimony, as prosecutors say he "will be removed from the courtroom before a certain issue comes up."
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How each Diddy victim testified and how it could sway the trial's outcome
At his ongoing trial, Sean Combs has been accused of physical or sexual violence by seven women. His lawyers call them bitter opportunists. Prosecutors call them victims of Combs' criminal racket. Here's what each of these seven women told the jury, and why it matters legally. Over the past month, seven women have taken the stand at the Manhattan trial of rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs to tell chilling personal stories of physical and sexual violence. Two are Combs' ex-girlfriends, three are his former employees, and two were on the periphery of his multimillion-dollar media, entertainment, and lifestyle empire. Defense lawyers call them jealous, or bitter, or greedy. They say all seven women were with Combs by choice and are now out for what one attorney termed "a 'Me Too' money grab." Prosecutors call them victims and say their stories are the heart of the trial. Here's how the testimony of these seven accusers has turned the tables on Combs, building a case for federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges that could imprison him for anywhere from 15 years to life. Cassie Ventura, his first sex-trafficking accuser R&B singer Cassie Ventura was celebrating her 21st birthday in Las Vegas when Combs, who had signed her to his Bad Boy Records label the year before, surprised her with the kiss that started their relationship. She told the jury that hundreds of times over the next decade, from 2008 until 2018, Combs forced her to meet him at luxury hotels, to dress up in wigs, heels, and lingerie, to take handfuls of drugs, and to have sex with male escorts as Combs filmed and masturbated to the dayslong performances. "I want you to be glistening," she said Combs would tell her as he watched, ordering Ventura and sex workers with names like "Jewels" and "The Punisher" to apply ever more baby oil. These so-called "freak off" performances were first revealed in Ventura's quickly settled 2023 lawsuit. (Combs paid Ventura $20 million.) Ventura's allegations have since been corroborated at trial by freak off videos she'd saved over the years, by hotel records, and by testimony from eye-witnesses, including sex workers. One exotic dancer told jurors he witnessed Combs beating Ventura twice during freak offs in Manhattan between 2012 and 2014. "Bitch, when I tell you to come here, come now, not later," the dancer recalled Combs saying during one of more than a dozen beatings recounted at trial by witnesses and Ventura herself. Prosecutors say Ventura was sex-trafficked, meaning coerced into crossing state lines to participate in commercial sex acts (commercial because they involved paid sex workers). They say the violent, 2016 InterContinental hotel hallway video is unavoidable proof that she was sex-trafficked by force. They will likely argue that other evidence, including her unprofitable record deal and Combs' threats to publicize her freak-off tapes, proves she was sex-trafficked by means of fraud and coercion as well. They will likely also argue that from Ventura's vantage point at the center of the Combs empire, she also witnessed multiple crimes that support the racketeering charge. These include not just sex trafficking, but narcotics sales, forced labor (she was never compensated for her mixtape, a producer testified), extortion (she says Combs threatened to release freak off videos) and kidnapping (she says that when she was 22, he forced her to stay at an LA hotel until the bruises on her battered face healed enough to be hidden by makeup.) The defense has challenged Ventura's credibility by pointing to her lawsuit windfall, to the many times she left the Combs relationship only to freely return, and to the years of texts and emails in which she expresses her love of Combs and the freak offs. But Ventura described being trapped in a cycle of drug addiction, financial and emotional dependency, and fear. And yes, also love. "I would do absolutely anything for him," she told the jury, explaining why she agreed to the first freak off at age 22. "And it never stopped, our whole relationship." "Jane," his second sex-trafficking accuser "Jane," a recent ex-girlfriend of Combs, testified that on their first date at a Miami hotel in 2010, she fell "pretty head-over-heels for Sean." The date lasted five days, she told the jury. Over the next four months, she said, Combs slowly introduced her to his sexual preferences. He loved baby oil and drugs that kept them up day and night. He loved it when she dressed in lingerie and "high stripper heels." He'd play pornography and tell her to fantasize about the men on screen. "Do you like what you see there?" she said he'd ask her of these men. "Do you want that?" Then one night in 2021 at his Miami mansion, as the pornography rolled, he told her, "I can make this fantasy a reality if you'd like that." She loved him, she explained, and agreeing made him so happy. So she said yes. Jane said she soon realized she'd opened up "Pandora's box." Gone were the romantic trips and dinner dates of their first four months. Combs wanted freak offs — by now he was calling them "hotel nights" — nearly every time they saw each other over the next three years, up until his arrest in 2024. "It was just a door I was unable to shut," she told the jury. Jane's testimony has so far described some of the elements of sex trafficking. She said she reluctantly crossed state lines, traveling from the East Coast to Miami to Los Angeles, to engage with paid sex workers. But her testimony, which continues next week, has yet to show that Combs sex trafficked her using force, fraud, or coercion, as the indictment requires. She instead described intensive psychological and financial pressure. She said she agreed to hotel nights because she loved him, and because he'd moved her to Los Angeles from the East Coast and was paying rent and other costs for her and her child. And when she told him she no longer wanted to do hotel nights, he would brush her off, or make what may or may not rise to the level of a coercive threat to withdraw that financial support. "If you want to break up, that's fine," she testified he'd tell her. "Do you need, like, what, three more months in the house? Because I'm not about to be paying for a woman's rent that I'm not even seeing." Prosecutors have said Combs defrauded Jane by promising romantic dinners and trips, only to renege and persuade her into another hotel night. They have also said Combs was brutally violent with Jane, though it's unclear how they plan to draw a link between that violence and sex trafficking by force. Meanwhile, the defense will likely use hundreds of affectionate and erotic texts between Jane and Combs to argue that she is a bitter ex who willingly suffered any demands and violence, and who continues to have her expenses paid by Combs in return. Asked late Friday who is currently paying her rent, Jane answered, "Sean is." Prosecutors have also hinted that Jane is a witness to obstruction of justice, one of the underlying crimes they can use to prove the racketeering charge. "You will hear him try to manipulate Jane into saying she wanted freak offs," Emily Johnson, an assistant US attorney, told the jury during May 12 opening statements, describing a phone call recorded after Ventura's lawsuit was filed. "You will hear him interrupt Jane when she pushes back," Johnson said. Prosecutors have also said he made a point of paying for Jane's housing — even after his arrest. "Mia," his rape accuser "Mia," a former Combs employee, told the jury about a night 15 years ago, when she slept in the employee bedroom at his Los Angeles mansion. She woke up with Combs on top of her, she said, telling her, "Be quiet." "It was very quick, but it felt like forever," she said, her voice breaking into quiet, gasping sobs. Mia, like Jane, testified under a pseudonym to protect her privacy. She told the jury that Combs raped or sexually assaulted her at least four times throughout her eight years working as his personal assistant and as an executive for his short-lived movie company, Revolt Films. As with Jane and Cassie, Mia described in dozens of texts and social media posts struggling with her financial dependence on Combs and her fear of his violent nature, even as she spoke warmly of him. Mia supported the Ventura sex-trafficking claim. She said she saw Combs throw Ventura to the ground and "crack her head open." But Mia was not herself sex-trafficked, according to prosecutors — she is instead a racketeering witness. Mia's testimony may be used to support an underlying racketeering crime of forced labor. She told the jury that Combs made her work as many as five days in a row with little or no sleep. Combs was a volatile boss who stole her phone and passport during arguments that turned violent, she said. Her testimony may also support an underlying crime of bribery and obstruction of justice. Mia told the jury that Combs' bodyguard, Damion "D-Roc" Butler, called and texted her repeatedly in the weeks after Ventura's lawsuit, spinning the "Puff and Cass" relationship as normal, and offering her "a gift." Capricorn Clark, his kidnapping accuser In her testimony, Capricorn Clark, Combs' former personal assistant and marketing exec, supported the Ventura sex-trafficking charge, describing Ventura as docile, trapped, and frequently subjected to beatings. During one beating, Clark said, Combs stopped briefly to warn her, "If I jumped in he was going to fuck me up, too." Clark is primarily a racketeering witness. Her testimony supports the underlying crimes of kidnapping and extortion. Clark said Combs was so enraged by Ventura's brief 2011 romance with rival rapper Kid Cudi that he forced Clark at gunpoint to ride with him and a bodyguard to Cudi's nearby house in Hollywood Hills. "He just said get dressed, we're going to go kill this —" and here he used the N-word. Cudi — whose given name is Scott Mescudi — told the jury that he arrived home to find his dog locked in the bathroom and a table full of Christmas presents unwrapped and rifled through. Clark also corroborated trial testimony by Ventura and her mom, Regina Ventura, concerning what prosecutors call a $20,000 extortion threat. The mom said she wired Combs the money after he threatened to release explicit sex tapes of her daughter. Dawn Richard, death-threat witness Former Danity Kane singer Dawn Richard testified to a brutal 2009 beating at Combs' rented Los Angeles mansion that supports both the Ventura sex-trafficking-by-force allegation and racketeering. Combs punched, kicked, and dragged Ventura during a fight over her not cooking him breakfast quickly enough, both Ventura and Richard told the jury. The next day, Combs called Ventura and Richard into his studio and locked the door. Inside, he tried to explain the incident, gave them some flowers, and what Richard said she considered to be a death threat. "He said that what we saw was passion," Richard testified. He told them, "he was trying to take us to the top, and that, where he comes from, people go missing," if they talk to the police, she said. "And then he gave us flowers." Prosecutors may call what happened next inside the studio extortion, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice, all underlying racketeering crimes. Kerry Morgan In her testimony, Kerry Morgan supported the Ventura sex-trafficking charge, describing two times she saw Combs beat Ventura, whom she called her best friend from their teenage modeling years. Once was when Ventura took too long in the bathroom during a 2013 Jamaica vacation. Morgan said Combs dragged a screaming Ventura outside by the hair and flung her down onto some paving bricks. For about 30 seconds, "I thought she was knocked out," Morgan testified. Morgan also supported the racketeering count by describing a $30,000 hush-money payment she received from Combs. In return for the money, Morgan said, she signed a non-disclosure agreement that barred her from talking about a 2018 assault she said happened earlier that year in Ventura's Hollywood Hills house. Combs was desperate to learn "who Cassie was cheating on him with," she testified. Combs let himself into Ventura's apartment, she said. "He came up behind me, and choked me when I got away, he boomeranged a wooden hanger at my head," giving her a concussion, Morgan said. Bryana "Bana" Bongolan, who says Combs dangled her over a balcony Bryana "Bana" Bongolan, a marketing director, told jurors she and Ventura are longtime friends. They shared a lot of drugs over the years, she said — including cocaine, ketamine, and GHB. They also shared trauma, she told the jury. She once saw Combs throw a knife at Ventura, who she said threw it back. 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Westmoreland questioned Bongolan hard about her and Ventura's lawsuits against Combs. In one example, Bongolan's ongoing lawsuit accuses Combs of violent sexual assault, an allegation not made in her June 4 testimony — though Bongolan did tell jurors that Combs' hands cupped her breasts before he hoisted her up from under her arms. "It means a lot for you to become a ten-millionaire soon, doesn't it?" Westmoreland asked Bongolan, who answered, "I care about justice." Read the original article on Business Insider
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Diddy trial week 4 recap: Claims of physical abuse, bribery and coercion
Sean 'Diddy' Combs' federal sex trafficking trial wrapped its fourth week on Friday with even more bombshell claims about the embattled music mogul, including that he dangled a woman off a 17th-floor balcony and coerced another into participating in sex parties. Combs, 55, has been behind bars at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center since his arrest in September. He's accused of creating a drug-fueled empire of sexual abuse and violence that went unchecked for years, thanks to his fame, influence and a well-paid network tasked with covering up his alleged crimes. Now four weeks in, the legal proceedings have included testimony from his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, fellow rapper Kid Cudi, and former staffers and flings — including one woman who claimed she was forced for years to participate in Diddy's infamous 'freak-offs.' Here's a recap of what happened during the fourth week of trial: Bryana Bongolan, a friend of Ventura who goes by the nickname 'Bana,' recalled for the court a 2016 incident when Diddy allegedly dangled her over a balcony at Ventura's high-rise apartment in Los Angeles. The women had been hanging out when the rapper burst through the door and Bongolan fled to the balcony, she said. She described how Diddy approached her from behind, grabbed her from beneath her armpits and held her over the ledge, 17 stories from the ground. After nearly 20 seconds over the rail, she was then hurled into balcony furniture. 'You know what the f–k you did,' she recalled Combs saying. But to this day, she said she still doesn't know why the rapper flew into a rage. The encounter left her with several injuries, which she photographed the next day. The images were presented to the jury and showed Bongolan severely bruised with bandages on her arms and back. Prosecutors also provided jurors with a text, allegedly sent by Ventura to Combs' former staffer Kristina Khorram following the incident. She wrote that Combs 'went at Bana, choked her, dangled her feet off the balcony. This is crazy. I have to get away.' Combs has denied these allegations. Security guard Eddy Garcia testified that Combs offered him $100,000 to hide surveillance video that shows him violently beating Ventura in a hotel hallway back in 2016. The clip — leaked in part by CNN last year and played in full for the jury toward the beginning of the trial — shows the rapper, clad in just a towel around his waist, chasing Ventura down the hallway, grabbing her by the neck and throwing her to floor. The video shows him kicking her as she lies motionless on the ground, before eventually taking hold of her sweatshirt and dragging her back toward their room. Ventura previously testified the beating took place when she attempted to sneak out of hotel after Combs punched her in the face during one of his freak-offs. Garcia, then 24 years old, said he began his shift hours after the 'domestic dispute' erupted, but eventually fielded a phone call from Khorram, who asked him about any security footage. 'Off the record, it's bad,' he recalled telling her. Diddy later allegedly told the security guard he had too much to drink and 'if this got out, it would ruin him,' Garcia said. During emotional testimony spanning several days, a woman using the pseudonym 'Jane' recalled the debilitating pressure she felt to participate in Diddy's freak-offs, and how the marathon sex sessions turned their relationship into something she feared. She said she met Combs in November 2020 and fell 'head over heels' shortly after they started dating two months later. As a couple, they enjoyed elaborate outings and frequent trips, which often involved drugs that made her feel 'relaxed, euphoric, sexual,' she said. Prior to that, she'd only taken drugs twice before. Jane told jurors things started to change after Diddy suggested she have sex with a male escort in front of him. Despite feeling uncomfortable with the idea, she said she agreed not realizing he was being serious — until he informed her shortly later 'there's somebody coming.' That first freak-off opened 'a Pandora's box in the relationship,' Jane said, telling the court she had no idea at the time it would become a frequent event. Much like Ventura, she testified that subsequent encounters involved her being plied with drugs to keep her awake and recorded without her consent. Jane said she went along with the freak-offs for a while, attempting to gain some control by choosing which escorts she slept with. By September 2023, she admitted to Diddy in a lengthy text that the 'dark' encounters made her feel 'disgusted' with herself, but she was afraid to 'lose the roof over my head.' Jane, a young single mom, cried throughout her testimony. She said she felt 'obligated to perform' in the freak-offs, partly because she believed Diddy loved her and partly because he often threatened to cut her off if she didn't do what he said. At the time, Diddy had been paying her rent. Jane remained with the rapper up until his arrest. Judge Arun Subramanian on Friday once again warned Diddy about interacting with and trying to influence the jury, threatening to give him the boot if he continued to ignore the directive. 'I saw your client looking at the jury and nodding vigorously,' said the judge, who called Diddy's behavior 'absolutely unacceptable.' 'If it happens again, if it happens even once, I will hear an application from the government to give a curative instruction to the jury, which you do not want,' Subramanian continued. 'Or I will consider taking further measures, which could result in the exclusion of your client from the courtroom.' Combs' lead attorney, Marc Agnifilo, assured the judge it would not happen again. The scolding came after Combs seemingly nodded at jurors during Bongolan's testimony about the balcony incident. Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges including sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
