Cassie Says She Does Not ‘Hate' Diddy During Trial Testimony: ‘I Have Love for the Past'
As 's testimony in ex-boyfriend Sean 'Diddy' Combs' trial continues, she has made it clear that she's moved on from what she has alleged to be an abusive relationship.
Cassie, 38, and Diddy, 55, dated off and on from 2007 to 2018, during which time she alleges the rap mogul sexually and physically abused her. (He has denied her allegations.)
'I don't hate him,' she said on the stand on Friday, May 16. 'I have love for the past, and what it was.'
About one year before Diddy's September 2024 arrest on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution, Cassie filed a suit against him outlining her accusations. Diddy pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges and denied all the allegations in the lawsuit.
Cassie Says She Doesn't Remember 'A Whole Lot' From Diddy Hotel Assault: Day 4 of Her Testimony
'Mr. Combs vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations,' Diddy's lawyer Ben Brafman said in November 2023, in response to the suit.
One day after the suit was filed, Diddy and Cassie settled out of court. She revealed earlier this week that the settlement agreement was for $20 million.
In May 2024, CNN published a hotel surveillance video of Diddy kicking and grabbing Cassie in 2016. He later apologized for his actions in a video shared via Instagram.
Cassie has spent the past four days testifying about her relationship with Diddy, during which time she has accused Diddy of raping her and forcing her to participate in sexual activity against her will during his alleged 'freak offs.'
Inside the Courtroom Dynamic Between Diddy, Cassie and Her Husband Alex Fine as She Testifies
She explained on Wednesday, May 14, that the emotional toll of Diddy's alleged abuse caused her to try and walk into oncoming traffic before her husband, Alex Fine, stopped her.
'I was spinning out,' she testified. 'I didn't want to be alive anymore at that point.'
Following that incident, Cassie said she entered trauma therapy, where she began writing a book about her time with Diddy. She added that she gave him some of the chapters.
'I really wanted Sean to read the information,' she said. 'I wanted him to understand what I had to learn to understand over that period.'
Cassie Recalls Being 'Sexually Inexperienced' Before Diddy Relationship, Says He Gave Her Ecstasy
In the months following his arrest, Diddy's legal team has repeatedly denied the claims against him.
'We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney's Office,' Diddy's attorney Marc Agnifilo said in a statement last year. 'He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal. To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.'
Since his arrest, Diddy has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. His four requests for bail were denied by Judge Arun Subramanian.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support. If you or someone you know is a human trafficking victim, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
17 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Pr. George's police chief is a finalist for a job in Phoenix
The city of Phoenix said Wednesday that Prince George's County Police Chief Malik Aziz is a finalist in its nationwide search for someone to lead the police department in Arizona's largest city. The news circulated among Aziz's officers in Maryland, many of whom learned of the chief's job search from a Phoenix news release announcing him as one of three finalists. The Prince George's County Police Department declined to comment. The news of Aziz's potential departure comes as Aisha N. Braveboy (D) prepares to take over as Prince George's County executive on Juneteenth. Braveboy, who has served as state's attorney since 2019, was elected to the role in early June after the job was vacated mid-term by Angela Alsobrooks (D), now a U.S. senator. It is not uncommon for new county executives to bring in their own Cabinet members or hire new people into key leadership roles. As the top law enforcement officials in Prince George's County, Braveboy and Aziz worked alongside each other since 2021, when he was hired to reform the police department amid nationwide calls for racial justice and police accountability. 'As states attorney my office had a good working relationship with Chief Aziz,' Braveboy said in a statement Wednesday. 'I wish him the best.' Acting county executive Tara Jackson said in a statement that Aziz 'has done an outstanding job leading our police department through challenging times.' At a recent news conference, Aziz touted an overall decrease in crime, with total crime down 16 percent compared with this time last year. His annual summer crime initiative is in full swing, which focuses on crime reduction and community engagement during the summer months. A Texas native, Aziz came to Maryland after decades in law enforcement in Dallas, where he garnered a national reputation as an advocate for community policing and reform. He had served as the national chair of the National Black Police Association and worked on President Barack Obama's task force on 21st century policing in 2015. He advocated for the Justice Department to collect annual demographic statistics from all police agencies to hold them accountable for diversifying their command ranks, according to the task force's final report. Alsobrooks hired Aziz in March 2021 and instructed him to overhaul a department that has long had a contentious relationship with county residents. He took over as the nation and the county were grappling with the Black Lives Matter movement and widespread calls for reform. He vowed to build a strong relationship with reform advocates and community partners. Tamara McKinney, vice president of the Heels Off Gloves On Boxing Foundation, said Aziz once showed up to a boxing ring to support the organization. When he noticed a young boxer was without boxing shoes, he found a sponsor to assist the group. They were able to buy 16 to 18 pairs of shoes for boxers who couldn't afford the equipment, McKinney said. 'I think he made a concerted effort to change the mind of the community about having such a negative outlook on police,' McKinney said. Before coming to Prince George's, Aziz had been a finalist for chief positions in cities across the country, including Milwaukee, Miami and his hometown of Dallas, where he last served as deputy chief of the Dallas Police Department. Phoenix officials said the three finalists will speak at a public forum on Monday. City officials said they hope to announce the new chief in July.
Fox News
23 minutes ago
- Fox News
Rogan claims 2 former presidents called Spotify over his controversial COVID commentary
Podcaster Joe Rogan claimed Tuesday that two unnamed former presidents were involved in the protest against his skeptical discussions about COVID-19. Spotify received backlash in 2022 for allowing Rogan, one of its biggest stars, to spread what progressive critics claimed was COVID misinformation. Musician Neil Young famously removed his content from Spotify in protest over Rogan's rhetoric, saying he no longer wanted to share a platform with him. "And then all of a sudden, I hear that Neil Young wants me removed from Spotify. I was like, 'What the f--- is going on? This is crazy,'" Rogan said Tuesday. "Spotify got calls from two former presidents," he added. Then-Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki commented on the controversy directly. After Spotify announced it would flag podcasts that cover COVID-19, Psaki responded, "So this disclaimer, it's a positive step, but we want every platform to continue doing more to call out misinformation while also uplifting accurate information." "Our hope is that all major tech platforms — and all major news sources for that matter — be responsible and be vigilant to ensure the American people have access to accurate information on something as significant as COVID-19," she added. But Rogan said that instead of being censored or deplatformed, "I grew by 2 million subscribers in a month." "People started listening," he said, despite how his critics attacked his reputation. "And they started listening, like, 'Oh, he's really reasonable and pretty humble about all this stuff and just asking questions.'" Rogan also condemned how media outlets attacked his use of Ivermectin to treat his COVID-19 by referring to it as a horse dewormer. "I'm, like, 'Why aren't you guys concentrating on the fact that a 55-year-old man is fine three days later during the worst strain?' It was during the Delta where everybody's freaking out. 'This one's going to kill us all.' And I was fine in three days," he said. Rogan described the whole experience as a "wake-up call" that opened his eyes about the liberal legacy media. "It's so dirty. It's such a dirty business," Rogan said. "God, I used to have massive respect for journalists. If I had never done this podcast, I would be your regular schmo out there with, you know, just spitting out all the company lines and all the blast all over the news." "I kind of liked it better then," he said with a laugh. "I didn't think the world is filled with demons, money-hungry demons that are willing to sacrifice human lives in the pursuit of revenue." Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek addressed the pushback against hosting Rogan during the company's earnings call in February 2022. "I think the important part here is that we don't change our policies based on one creator, nor do we change it based on any media cycle," the chief executive said at the time. "Our policies have been carefully written with the input from numbers of internal and external experts in this space – and I do believe they're right for our platform." Fox News Digital reached out to Spotify for comment and did not receive an immediate reply.
New York Times
23 minutes ago
- New York Times
How the Beach Boys' ‘Pet Sounds' Entered the Pop Music Pantheon. (Eventually.)
Making a list of the best rock albums ever is easy: Something old (the Beatles), something new or newer (perhaps Radiohead), something borrowed (the Rolling Stones' blues or disco pastiches) and Joni Mitchell's 'Blue.' And, of course, bursting into the top 10 — and often higher — of any respectable list: 'Pet Sounds.' The overwhelming brainchild of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys' chief songwriter whose death at 82 was announced on Wednesday, 'Pet Sounds' is beautiful — with gorgeous vocal harmonies, haunting timbres and wistful lyrics of adolescent longing and estrangement. It was a landmark in studio experimentation that changed the idea of how albums could be made. But one thing that stands out about the Beach Boys' masterpiece is how gradually it came to be widely celebrated, compared with many of its peers. 'When it was released in the United States,' said Jan Butler, a senior lecturer in popular music at Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom, 'it did pretty well, but for the Beach Boys, it was considered a flop.' Released in the spring of 1966, 'Pet Sounds' represented a break from the catchy tunes about surfing, cars and girls that the group had consistently rode to the top of the charts. The opening track is called 'Wouldn't It Be Nice,' but previous Beach Boys songs had described how nice it was. The album peaked at No. 10 — low for one of the most popular acts at the time — and was the first Beach Boys album in three years not to reach gold status, Butler wrote in a chapter of an academic book. The Beach Boys' record company, Capitol, rushed out a greatest-hits that outsold the album of original music. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
