Sean ‘Diddy' Combs trial: Most shocking bombshells from Cassie testimony
NEW YORK — Cassie Ventura, who dated Sean 'Diddy' Combs for over a decade until 2018, appeared in court as the star witness during his high-profile sex trafficking trial.
The pregnant R&B singer took the stand this week to testify against the disgraced music mogul. Her harrowing testimony revealed graphic details on everything from freak-offs and drug use to the emotional and physical abuse she endured throughout their 11-year relationship.
Here's a roundup of the most shocking bombshell moments of Ventura's testimony during trial.
How Cassie's relationship with Diddy started
The duo met when the Bad Boy Records founder signed then 19-year-old Ventura to record her first album with the label. The business relationship turned romantic on her 21st birthday when Combs kissed her during a trip to Las Vegas.
Ventura admitted she cried after the kiss because 'there was a 17-year age difference.'
'I was really confused at the time, you know, new artist. I was pretty naïve,' she said on the stand.
She also revealed she wasn't sober the first time they had sex.
'I was drinking wine, then started to take drugs, a blue dolphin ecstasy pill,' she said. 'Sean gave it to me, I had never taken it before. I was just out of it, laughing, didn't know what it was until a little bit later.'
Diddy's 'insanely jealous' behavior
The 'Me & You' singer spoke about Diddy's 'insanely jealous' and controlling behaviors throughout their relationship.
Ventura said Combs would have his security guards keep an eye on her at all times and that he had keys to her apartment. She also told jurors he kept many guns in his homes and would force her to carry one for him as a fear tactic.
'Sean controlled a lot of my life, whether it was career, the way I dressed, everything,' she testified. 'I just didn't have much say in it at the time.'
Violence frequently occurred
Ventura said Diddy first got violent when she was 21, shortly after they became romantically involved in 2007.
'He hit me in the side of my head and I fell to the floor of the car,' she recalled.
The violence only continued from there, according to Ventura. When asked how often Combs physically assaulted her, she replied, 'Too frequently.'
She said if she even so much as made the wrong expression, 'the next thing [she] knew, [she] was getting hit in the face.'
Ventura detailed another alleged incident in 2009, during which Diddy attacked her for an entire 10-minute car ride. She said she was punched and kicked during another beating in 2015 that left her with'black eyes' and 'golf-ball sized knots' on her forehead.
Any attempt to fight back 'just made him more violent,' she claimed.
Following the assaults, Combs' team would often set her up in hotels or lock her away at home to hide until her wounds healed, she said. Ventura testified that many people, including Combs' security guards, drivers and assistants, were witness to the brutal attacks and did nothing to stop them.
How Cassie was introduced to freak-offs
Ventura said she was 22 when she was first asked to participate in one of Diddy's infamous sex parties known as 'freak-offs.'
'He described it as a fantasy he had where he would want to see me having sexual interactions with another male so he could watch,' she revealed, saying she was afraid to say no out of fear he would react with physical violence.
'I just remember my stomach falling to my butt,' she recalled. 'I was confused, nervous, but I loved him so much.'
Ventura said the freak-offs happened almost every week for the subsequent years, sometimes for days at a time, and were often filmed without her consent. She claimed Combs would later threaten to release the recordings when he was angry with her.
What the baby oil was used for
Authorities allegedly found over 1,000 bottles of baby oil after raiding Diddy's homes in March 2024, according to prosecutors.
Ventura said the baby oil was poured on people's bodies during freak-offs.
She also described an incident in which Combs requested she get inside an inflatable pool filled with baby oil, and she once again feared what would happen if she refused.
'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.'
Drug use during freak-offs
According to Ventura, Combs plied her with ecstasy and cocaine to keep her awake while performing sexual acts during freak-offs.
'I was high, so I didn't feel much,' she tearfully said on the stand. 'Did this really happen to me? I didn't know what was going to happen after that, if we were going to do it more frequently. I said yes to more, I didn't want to make him upset or angry.'
Ventura said she eventually developed an opiate addiction from the drugs Combs supplied her.
Diddy forced a male escort to urinate in Cassie's mouth
The 38-year-old spoke of a time when Combs told a male escort to urinate in her mouth during a freak-off.
'There was no conversation. It was a turn-on for him, so it happened,' she said. 'I just felt humiliated. It was disgusting. It was too much. I choked. I didn't want to be doing that. … Sean urinated on me at the same time.'
Ventura again described being high and unable to control the situation, particularly with 'two men standing over you.'
Cassie was forced to have sex during her period
Ventura testified that Combs expected her to perform in the freak-offs even during her menstrual cycle.
'He wanted that and I did not want to do that,' she said on the stand. 'Blood would get on the linens.'
She further described suffering numerous UTIs from the frequent orgies.
Diddy raped Cassie amid their breakup
After Ventura attempted to end the relationship in 2018, Combs allegedly raped her on the floor of her home, she testified on the stand.
'His eyes were black, he wasn't himself, it was like somebody taking something from you,' she said, describing how she was crying and saying 'no' during the attack.
Ventura confessed she was consensually intimate with Combs one more time before ending the relationship for good. When asked why she would voluntarily have sex with Combs after being raped, she admitted it was difficult to extricate herself from the relationship after nearly 11 years.
Cassie considered suicide after suffering flashbacks
Years after leaving Combs, debilitating flashbacks of the abuse led Ventura to consider ending her life.
'I didn't want to be alive anymore at that point,' she said of having suicidal thoughts in 2023. 'I couldn't take the pain I was in.'
Ventura tearfully recalled one instance in March of that year when she 'tried to walk out the front door into traffic' — while her two daughters were asleep in the house.
Her husband, Alex Fine, who's been supporting her in court, stopped her from walking out the door that night.
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It's not as if traditional broadcast media isn't its own sort of performance, but for new media, the relay of the news is more about the explicit creation of entertainment than it is a way to courier information, and Soo is no exception. When the trial first started, Soo came under fire from seemingly the entire internet for posting a video of her twirling in front of the courthouse while eating a PB&J. (The accusation was that she wasn't taking the trial seriously.) This then sparked a larger conversation about how she had ended up with a press badge in the first place, given her 'giddy' tone and the accusation that she is not a 'real' journalist. (Soo suggested in one video that Combs himself mouthed 'I know you' to her in court, though she added that he could have been talking to someone else.) 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Many of the trial's daily creators are YouTubers whose main coverage tack is conducting livestreams after the day's proceedings, sometimes right outside the courthouse. The videos of Tisa Tells, a Black news YouTuber who livestreams daily rundowns of the trial, come off as heightened and chaotic. She often streams from the center of whatever new chaos is unfolding outside the courthouse, so I understand how easy it is to make these reports seem breathless, and audiences certainly respond to the heightened energy. But I think it gives a sensationalized view of the whole ordeal, even though Tisa's lives stick mostly to what was actually said in the courtroom. Watching her feels as if you're on a video call with your charismatic friend reenacting the trial's biggest moments—coverage not really analogous to a news report. The real sauce of new media comes with their ability to ride the line between impartial recounts of who said what, with pointedly biased commentary on how they personally feel about it. Still, unlike the equally infamous trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, in which streamers' portrayal seemed to have taken a pro-Depp side and influenced the perception of the trial, in the Diddy case, the streamers are not pointedly swaying audiences to side one way or another. In fact, watching the content of new-media stars that I personally see in the courthouse, I was surprised by how concerned these creators seemed, not with whether Diddy is guilty but with how well the prosecution or defense is doing in laying out their arguments one way or another. They're assessing the case with the color that we, legacy media, can't always be so candid about. They explain the day's proceedings the way I would to my mother—not my editor. And that's the draw. Here's an example: During her recap of a testimony from a former employee of Combs to whom the prosecution offered immunity, Tisa said his 'vibes were off.' I absolutely felt this myself but couldn't quite figure out how to express it in print—because the precise ways in which said vibes were off are my own speculation, rather than confirmed facts. (In retrospect, maybe the best way is to say that he seemed strangely indebted to his former employer Combs.) Tisa's reenactments, commentary, and energy earned her a comment from a viewer who dubbed her 'the new and improved Wendy Williams,' signaling a changing future for even legacy gossips and talk show hosts. I often find myself agreeing with many of the new media, even if I'm also confused by their tone or editing style. YouTuber Make It Make Sense, who goes by Mims, gives lengthy recaps with commentary (at times analyzing the events and coming to the same conclusion as me), all while demonstrating an astute knowledge of the other extra players in the stories. He uses memes to emphasize his skepticism and shock at some of the witnesses' claims and certain legal tactics. For my money, the most entertaining and impartial of the creators I would see at the courthouse daily is Armon Wiggins, who reads testimonial quotes like you would read a passage aloud in a classroom and doesn't refrain in between from providing his commentary on how the legal teams are doing. This is in addition to his comedic full-body reenactments of the lighter-hearted scenarios that a witness merely describes, like Kid Cudi's referring to Combs as a 'Marvel supervillain.' There is one creator who might be pushing a biased narrative in this trial: Myron Gaines, known for his content under the name Fresh & Fit. Gaines is a popular manosphere personality with a controversial background working in Homeland Security, and his regular content often involves telling men to deprioritize women and telling women to devalue themselves. Gaines—who, fun fact, wrote a book titled Why Women Deserve Less (rated 4.8/5 stars on Amazon, with over 2,500 reviews)—often emphasizes on the sexually explicit texts Ventura sent that are in evidence and throws shade on her claims that she would rather trade the millions of dollars she legally won to get her agency back. He further describes the defense's cross-examination of her as 'slowly dragging her for being a whore.' But even his coverage, though near-manic at times and full of snide remarks regarding Ventura's testimony, also concerns itself with how well the legal teams are doing—it is no Depp/Heard situation. Often, the personas on display in the content are far from how these creators present in real life. Soo is reserved; Tisa is one of the kindest people you'll meet in the courthouse. Everyone remarks on the difference between talking to Gaines in person, during which he is reserved to the point of coming across as introverted—Soo called him 'meek' in one of her videos—versus watching his content online. Why is this trial so different from what spun out from the Heard/Depp trial? I think the leaked CNN video of Combs' assaulting Ventura (and his later public apology for it) has already made it clear that Combs has done some awful things. Now the question is centered more on if the prosecution can prove that Combs did awful things in the specifically criminal way it says he did. Hence the focus on the legal teams' competence. You know what also helps these new0media creators? A strong flow of cash. Soo is always the first person in line, getting the best seat in the house to view the proceedings, and taking one of the coveted 21 spots for her assistant as well. That's because, in a recent video, Soo stated that her team is spending more than '$1,000 a day to have line sitters just to make sure we get into that main courtroom.' She noted that she is paying this much because she knows that members of legacy media also have the money to spend on line sitters. That's true, in some but certainly not all (or even most) circumstances. But it's also the case that in this trial, there's one line for everyone that is eventually separated into media and nonmedia lines, whereas in other trials—like New York state's Donald Trump trial—legacy media is cleared through an entirely separate process and doesn't have to wait at all once they've secured their spot. For Soo, it wouldn't matter, anyway: She sits at the front of media line with her press credentials every day. The federal court seems to be trying to decide how to deal with this new pecking order. The new media has displayed a willingness to break the rules for views: Last week, an unnamed YouTuber was banned from the court for revealing the identity of a federally protected anonymous witness. Tisa told of when she tried to talk to Kid Cudi after his testimony but was harshly shut down by court marshals. Even the new media themselves seem confused about their designation and what to do with it. Soo told her audience that she was wondering 'why was Fresh & Fit Myron in the courtrooms,' given his misogynistic online performance—without realizing that they essentially have the same job. And this new social order isn't limited to what happens inside the courthouse; it applies to what happens outside it, a shift that new media have turned into their own story. Every day, people stand outside the courthouse, making TikToks and recording those waiting in line to get inside. At one point, infamous New York content creator CrackheadBarneyandFriends accosted Gaines outside the building and lambasted him for his misogyny (while herself saying questionable things about Sudanese people). Soo has spent significant time detailing her encounters in line—which she does eventually get in herself, relieving her line holder closer to when the courthouse opens—with some of the mentally ill and/or combative people often found milling around the courthouse, as well as weird interactions with self-proclaimed fans. SecretServiceSam, a TikTok comedian who has also been reporting on the case and the trial for a long time, is often the first to report news, because he interviews people who have gotten ejected from the courthouse, as well as other faces on the outskirts of the action. In other words, no matter what happens inside, these new faces are likely not going away—they're just becoming another part of the circus, toeing the line between redefining news and feeding their audiences' insatiable appetite for drama.