NEW YORK (AP) — The R&B singer Cassie testified Wednesday that Sean “Diddy” Combs raped her when she ended their decade-long relationship, after he locked her in a life of physical abuse by threatening to release degrading sexual videos of her.
Addressing the Manhattan courtroom for a second day in Combs’ federal sex trafficking trial, Cassie said Combs forced his way into her Los Angeles apartment and raped her on the living room floor after she said she was breaking up with him.
Cassie also said she didn’t feel she could refuse Combs’ demands for her to have “hundreds” of encounters with male sex workers — which he watched and controlled for hours and even days — because he would make her “look like a slut” if he made the videos public.
“I feared for my career. I feared for my family. It’s just embarrassing. It’s horrible and disgusting. No one should do that to anyone,” said Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura.
Prosecutors showed the jury five still images from the sex videos on Wednesday. Cassie said the images depicted her at various stages of the encounters Combs called “freak-offs.” One juror’s eyes widened. Another shook his head from side to side.
She sued Combs in 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. Within hours, the suit was settled for $20 million — a figure Cassie disclosed for the first time Wednesday — but dozens of similar legal claims followed from other women.
Prosecutors accuse Combs of exploiting his status as a powerful music executive to violently force Cassie and other women to take part in sexual encounters. He is charged with crimes including racketeering and sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion. Several other accusers are set to testify.
Combs denies all of the allegations. His attorneys acknowledge he could be violent, but say the sex he and others engaged in was consensual and that nothing he did amounted to a criminal enterprise.
Combs’ lawyers were expected to begin cross-examining Cassie on Thursday, when they will get the chance to challenge her credibility or poke holes in her account of what happened.
Combs, 55, has been jailed since September. He faces at least 15 years in prison if convicted. The trial is expected to last about two months.
Cassie exposes the dark side of a celebrity relationship
Cassie’s testimony is exposing the dark underside of a relationship that, for years, played out publicly in pictures of the couple smiling on red carpets and celebrity events. She said she met Combs in 2005, when she was 19 and he was 37. Combs signed her to a 10-year contract with his Bad Boy Records label. Within a few years, they started dating, Cassie said.
They were photographed in 2016 attending the premiere of the film “The Perfect Match,” only two days after Combs beat and kicked Cassie at a Los Angeles hotel — an attack captured on security camera footage. After the footage was leaked last year, Combs apologized. Jurors were shown that footage as well as photos of the couple at the premier.
Cassie, now 38, calm and poised after an emotional first day of testimony, said she used makeup to cover bruises and wore sunglasses to hide a black eye for the premiere. She said she sneaked into a popcorn closet at the movie theater to switch dresses for an after-party so bruises on her legs wouldn’t be visible.
