Mick Jagger, Leonardo DiCaprio and Madonna are dragged into Diddy trial as the case enters its fourth week
The fourth week of Diddy 's infamous sex trafficking trial kicked off with a bang as his former assistant took the stand and more A-list celebrities were named - only to face a relentless cross-examination by the disgraced mogul's attorney, Brian Steel.
Hollywood heavyweights like Mick Jagger, Leonardo DiCaprio and Madonna were pulled into the spotlight as Diddy's legal team sifted through a trove of text messages between the disgraced rap mogul and his former assistant, aggressively questioning her about past employers and connections.
'Mia', a former personal assistant to the hip hop mogul, even revealed that she was once propositioned by the Rolling Stones singer while in Paris but 'ran away'.
Mia, who testified under a pseudonym, said Diddy once mocked DiCaprio as 'that Titanic mother******' and said he won more money than the actor.
In her testimony, Mia also revealed that after stopping working for Diddy she got a job with Madonna who didn't care that she had been 'blacklisted'.
The testimony came as prosecutors continued mounting their case and Mia was subjected to an aggressive cross-examination by Diddy's lawyer Brian Steel.
Steel accused Mia of being part of the 'MeToo money grab' but she claimed to have been 'brainwashed' during the decade she worked for Diddy until 2017.
Mia is one of the prosecution's star witnesses and claimed that Diddy raped her once and sexually assaulted her numerous times.
Steel relentlessly accused Mia of cashing into the MeToo movement, but she claimed to have been 'brainwashed' during the decade she worked for Diddy until 2017
At the court in New York, she was asked about the flattering and friendly messages she sent to Diddy after she stopped working for him.
One of them was from March 2020, in which she said: 'Love you too and the only things to remember are the good times and those are the only memories I have.'
Mia wrote: 'Ha ha ha like f****** HYSTERICAL ones…so many magical hilarious things like drinking 1942 (tequila) on the Parrot Cay beach (in Turks and Caicos) and champagne under the Eiffel Tower at 4am..and Mick Jagger trying to take me home and I ran away.'
In another part of the message, Mia referred to DiCaprio.
Recalling other memories, Mia said: 'Leo grabbed my pink bedazzled blackberry and you (Diddy) said: 'That titanic mother****** doesn't know s*** he won 10K, I won 85k HAHAHAHAHAHA.'
Mia did not explain the context of what she was referring to with DiCaprio, who attended Diddy's notorious 'White Parties' but has not been accused of wrongdoing.
DiCaprio was photographed with Diddy at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004.
In 2019, DiCaprio was filmed dancing at Diddy's 50th birthday party.
And in a video interview with Vogue in 2017, entitled '73 Questions with Sean 'Diddy' Combs', he said DiCaprio was the 'number one' person on the invite list for his then-upcoming White Party.
When Diddy was arrested last September sources close to DiCaprio sought to put distance between them and said he has 'absolutely nothing to do with any of this'.
The source said: 'He attended a few of his parties back in the early 2000s - but literally everyone did.'
In her testimony, Mia told the court that after leaving Diddy's employment in March 2017, she got a job with Madonna in April the following year.
Explaining her role, Mia said she did 'a myriad of things'.
She said: 'I was hired to help lead her film division, but she also needed help restructuring her executive team. It morphed into multiple roles. I also operated in an assistant-esque capacity.'
Mia confirmed she worked directly with Madonna and that she initially agreed to work for her for three months, but it extended to eight months.
Combs' lawyer Brian Steel asked: 'To your knowledge did Mr. Combs assist you in getting that job?'
Mia replied: 'Absolutely not.'
Steel asked if there was 'any evidence to show you were somehow blacklisted?'
Mia replied: 'Blacklisted? She (Madonna) didn't care about that. Of course not.'
At times, Steel's cross-examination grew confrontational, and prosecutor Maurene Comey objected and called it 'humiliating'.
She claimed that Steel had 'yelled' at Mia and been 'sarcastic' towards her.
But Judge Subramanian disagreed and said that prosecutors could object if they heard something they didn't like.
They did just that when Steel asked if Mia 'joined the MeToo money grab against Sean Combs?'
Mia was not allowed to answer.
Steel asked Mia about other messages she sent to Diddy after stopping working for him, focusing on a text on January 15, 2019, which read: 'Just thinking of you today and every day…. I had a nightmare I was trapped in an elevator with R. Kelly. I screamed and you came to rescue me.'
Steel asked: 'The person who sexually assaulted you came to your rescue?'
Mia said yes.
Steel asked: 'You had that vision in your mind, but you expressed it to Mr. Combs?'
Mia agreed.
Steel said: 'You had to tell him he's your savior?'
Mia said: 'Yes.'
Steel asked: 'The person who you told the jury terrorized you and caused you PTSD you wrote to that person and explained how that person saved you?'
Diddy's sons Justin Combs (left) and Quincy Brown (right) - the disgraced rapper's adopted son from Kim Porter - were both at their father's trial today
After an objection, Mia didn't answer.
When asked about a March 18, 2019, text to Diddy in which she wrote about 'sending all the love in the world' to him with a heart emoji, Mia said that he 'used to be my protector'.
That same day, she messaged Diddy: 'Speaking of, you should watch Love on Netflix,' referring to the 2016 comedy. Mia added: 'Judd Apatow created it. It's Superbad funny'.
In August 2020, Mia messaged Diddy about the death of Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther star who died at 43 from colon cancer.
Mia wrote: 'Thinking about you because I was thinking about Chaz Boseman and our sick James Brown auditions'.
In court, Mia said she was remembering Boseman for his auditioning for a biopic of James Brown and it was 'really intense'.
During another tense exchange, Steel asked: 'Your testimony that you were the victim at the hands of Mr. Combs brutality and sexual assaults is not true?'
Mia replied: 'I have never lied in this courtroom. I will never lie in this courtroom. Everything I said is true.'
Asked why Mia didn't raise concerns about Diddy or speak out earlier, she claimed to have been 'brainwashed' by him.
She said: 'I was in an environment where the highs were really high, and the lows were really low which created a huge confusion in me trusting my instincts.
'I was punished whenever Puff would be violent and I'd react, confusing me and making me believe I'd done something wrong.
'I'd try so hard to get back to that good space and work harder and be nicer and nobody around batted an eye. He was still praised by everyone around him and the public.
'I felt like I had done something horrifically like I'd betrayed him by going to mediation and I felt horrible about it. I'd done something wrong and was always constantly seeking his approval. He was my authority figure.'
Steel said: 'Are you finished?'
Mia said: 'Sure.'
Mia also talked about her duties while working as a personal assistant to the actor and comedian Mike Myers, who she worked for before Diddy.
The jury was shown Mia's resume which explained how she handled all 'unique requests' for Myers, who starred in the film Wayne's World.
The resume read: 'E.g. set up a private and confidential tour of the CIA by corresponding with Secret Service agents and government officials.'
According to reports from 2009, Myers addressed several hundred CIA officers and paid tribute to his mother who was in the British Royal Air Force in WWII.
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BreakingNews.ie
13 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Groundbreaking gay author Edmund White dies at 85
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Author Edmund White at his home in New York in 2019 (Mary Altaffer/AP) A Boy's Own Story was a bestseller and classic coming-of-age novel that demonstrated gay literature's commercial appeal. Advertisement He wrote a prizewinning biography of playwright Jean Genet and books on Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud. He was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University, where colleagues included Toni Morrison and his close friend, Joyce Carol Oates. He was an encyclopaedic reader who absorbed literature worldwide while returning yearly to such favourites as Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Henry Green's Nothing. 'Among gay writers of his generation, Edmund White has emerged as the most versatile man of letters,' cultural critic Morris Dickstein wrote in The New York Times in 1995. Advertisement 'A cosmopolitan writer with a deep sense of tradition, he has bridged the gap between gay subcultures and a broader literary audience.' 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Daily Mail
14 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
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The Independent
14 minutes ago
- The Independent
TNT's Kenny Albert wraps up a memorable 9-month stretch with the Stanley Cup Final
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