Star Witness Testifies Against Sean Combs

The star witness in the sex-trafficking trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs took the stand on Tuesday. Some highlights from the early testimony of R&B artist Cassie Ventura:

• "I really fell in love with him," she told the court, describing her relationship with Combs as "my first real adult relationship" and herself as a "little shadow" who followed him around, "enamored," per the Washington Post. "I can't say 'naive' enough," she said.
• Signed by Combs' Bad Boy Records while in her teens, Ventura became close to Combs both professionally and personally, per the AP. "He had my career in his hands," said Ventura, perhaps best known for the 2006 hit single "Me & U." They began dating a few years after meeting in 2005. Ventura is now 38, and Combs is 55.

• Eventually, Ventura said she began to "experience a different side of him, which was his abusive side," per CNN. She said he began controlling every aspect of her life, and was an "incessant caller." Physical abuse followed.
• "There were violent arguments that would usually result in some sort of physical abuse," she said, per the New York Times. "Dragging, different things of that nature." Combs would "knock me over, drag me, kick me, stomp me in the head," she told the court. "You make the wrong face and the next thing I knew I was getting hit in the face," she said.
• Prosecutor Emily Johnson showed jurors a still image from the infamous video footage of Combs beating Ventura in a hotel hallway in 2016. Ventura said the incident came amid a "freak off" at the hotel—a typical such encounter involved Ventura having sex with a male escort while Combs watched. "Freak offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again," she said. Fueled by drugs, they could last up to 48 hours.

(This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)