I was at Diddy's freak offs. This is what I saw

Telegraph

26-06-2025

Sharay Hayes is six feet two, rippling with muscles and nicknamed 'The Punisher'.
In 2015, working as an exotic dancer at the top of his game, he was described by the New York Post as giving Channing Tatum 'a run for his money'.
The Punisher, whose Instagram profile is all abs, leather and chains, partied with some of America's most beautiful women, hunkiest men and biggest stars.
He never thought that his glamorous lifestyle would end up with him sitting in a courtroom, with clips of him sleeping with the singer Cassie Ventura broadcast to 12 strangers.
It all began on the evening of Oct 14, 2012, when Mr Hayes received a call from a woman named Janet asking for a male dancer to entertain her and some friends, he tells the Telegraph.
He packed up and travelled to the Trump International Hotel in midtown Manhattan for the 3am booking.
But when a 'stunning woman' with an 'inviting smile' greeted him at the door of the suite in nothing but a bathrobe, he soon realised he was walking into an entirely different scenario.
'She immediately explained to me that she was not looking for a dance performance, that she wanted to set up this sexy scene where we would sit on couches adjacent from each other and put baby oil on in a sexy manner, and at some point her husband would come out and watch,' he told The Telegraph.
She handed him $800 in cash - four times the fee he had quoted for a dance - and he agreed, he said.
Mr Hayes had walked into a 'freak-off', days-long drug-fuelled parties during which Sean 'Diddy' Combs is accused of coercing Cassie Ventura into having sex with male escorts for his sexual gratification.
Little did he know, 13-years-later he would rake over the details of that night, and those which followed, to a packed Manhattan courtroom during Combs's criminal trial. Weeks after he testified, a jury would be shown a video of him and Ventura sleeping together 'at a freak-off'.
Mr Hayes has since said he would like to apologise to Ventura for his role in these nights, which she has said she did not want to take part in. He says he was not aware of this at the time.
Recounting that night in 2012, Mr Hayes, 51, said after agreeing to take part he was told to go into the bathroom and take off his clothes and come out nude or in a towel.
The room was dimly lit with candles and the furniture was covered in sheets, which he now realises was to protect it from being damaged by baby oil.
'I was instructed to sit on one single chair that was kind of adjacent to a sofa, she positioned herself on the sofa and then we began to do the baby oil... I would put it on myself, she's putting it on herself, we would put on each other and then there were sexual gestures of self pleasuring and stuff like that to try to set the mood,' he said.
Eventually Combs, who he believed was Ventura's husband, and says he did not realise at the time was the a-lister, came out completely nude with a niqab covering his face and sat in a chair around 12 to 15 feet away.
'It was very strange, just the idea of understanding a partner would come in was already strange but, seeing his face completely covered it threw me off,' he said.
Combs would give them directions, Mr Hayes said, mainly based on the lighting and the positioning of their bodies.
'It was clear that this scene was based on his preference and something that he enjoyed', he said.
The 'scene' lasted around 25 to 35 minutes, when Combs left the room, Ventura followed.
Five minutes later she returned and told him it had been 'perfect' and asked him if he would like to finish, he says. He declined, and she handed him an extra $1,200.
A few months later, Ventura called him again and they carried out the same scenario with the baby oil, but this time he had sex.
He would see the couple around eight to 12 times over a two-and-a-half-year period and would be paid between $1,200 to $2,000 each time.
Each session would last for a minimum of four hours, he said, with the sexual activity lasting up to 45 minutes.
Sometimes Combs would leave the room, Ventura would follow, and then they would return and Mr Hayes would be asked to resume. He says Combs would give directions, including telling them if they needed to apply more baby oil.
During one session, when Mr Hayes and Ventura were having intercourse on the bed, Combs 'slammed' a stack of hundred dollar bills down 'in approval'.
'[Ventura] kind of looked at him... to gauge was he okay or whatever, and he just says, 'I'm fine. I like that shit, I'm enjoying this shit.''
Mr Hayes said he never saw Combs being aggressive towards Ventura and she did not appear as though she was being forced to take part in the sexual acts.
There were moments she appeared 'frustrated' and would sigh, but he said these were in response to Combs's directions, which could be as specific as telling her to move a candle slightly to the left.
During her four day-long testimony, Ventura told the court she was forced to undergo gruelling days-long sex sessions.
She said that she was sometimes coerced into taking part in the 'freak-offs' even while unwell, and suffering from UTIs.
Once she had even blacked out, and woken up in the shower, she told the court. 'It made me feel worthless,' she told the court.
'Freak-offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again.'
Mr Hayes said he did not discover who the celebrity couple were until around 15 months after their first encounter, when he saw a sign on the television at JW Marriott Essex House saying: 'Welcome Mr Sean Combs.'
His final encounter with the couple took place in 2015 after an extended break. Mr Hayes explained he felt uncomfortable and was unable to perform sexually, and they did not call again.
He has since written a self-help book on erectile dysfunction called In Search of Freezer Meat, which included an anonymised passage about the couple.
Mr Hayes said he did not feel used, but felt 'special' that this high-profile couple had chosen him.
'Now in hindsight, I know I was one of many and it kind of killed that, burst that bubble, but in the moment I thought it was something to be honoured to be a part of', he said.
Testifying in court last month was a nerve wracking experience, Mr Hayes said, adding that he was physically shaking when he took the stand.
He avoided eye contact with Combs until the end of his testimony, when they nodded at each other as he left the courtroom.
Initially, Mr Hayes was confused why he had been called to testify as he did not witness physical abuse and did not travel across state lines for these encounters.
As part of his sex trafficking charge, Combs is accused of transporting male escorts across state lines to engage in the 'freak-offs'.
But his role in the case appeared to become more apparent when the jury was played videos of 'freak-offs', which included one recorded the night Mr Hayes first met Combs and Ventura.
'I had no idea anything was possibly filmed, so it's a surprise to me to know that there is video footage', he says, adding: 'It creates a degree of worry.'