Cassie, the singer who appeared alongside music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs at events for years while they were in a relationship and she was signed to his Bad Boy record label, has alleged in a lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal District Court in Manhattan, that she endured years of abuse and was raped by him.
These are explosive allegations against one of the biggest names in music, which he has denied. (More about that below.)
Legal affairs journalist Meghann Cuniff posted the entire document on X, formerly known as Twitter. It includes a trigger warning about “highly graphic information of a sexual nature.”
Here’s a breakdown of what’s going on.
Who is Cassie?
Casandra Ventura, 37, is a singer, model and actress who met Combs in late 2005/early 2006. She was 19 and he was 37, already a successful musician and the head of his own influential record label, Bad Boy Records. He signed the teenager and, in 2006, she charted with the singles “Me & U” and “Long Way 2 Go.”
By 2007, Combs had split from his then-partner, Kim Porter (who died in 2018), with whom he shares four children, and he and Ventura reportedly coupled up. The two appeared to confirm their relationship in a 2012 public appearance.
While they never publicly announced an engagement, speculation swirled after he posted an image of a diamond ring in 2014 that she was later spotted wearing. In August 2016, TMZ reported that Cassie and Diddy had a fight in Beverly Hills after she tried to break up with him — her mom purportedly called the cops — which led to rumors they had split. However, a source subsequently told Us Weekly that they remained a couple.
But in October 2018, her representative said in a statement to the magazine that Ventura and Combs were “indeed no longer together and haven’t been for months.”
What are Cassie allegations against Combs?
Ventura says that Combs, who has also gone by the nicknames Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, controlled, abused and sexually trafficked her. She says he gave her drugs and would both beat her and force her to have sex with other men while he filmed the encounters. In addition, she alleges that he raped her at her home, after having forced his way in, in 2018.
This began several years after they met in 2005, according to the lawsuit. He introduced her to “a lifestyle of excessive alcohol and substance abuse and required her to procure illicit prescriptions to satisfy his own addictions,” then “forced Ms. Ventura to engage in sex acts with male sex workers while masturbating and filming the encounters.”
He was “prone to uncontrollable rage” throughout their relationship and “frequently beat Ms. Ventura savagely,” the suit alleges. “These beatings were witnessed by Mr. Combs’s staff and employees of Bad Boy Entertainment and Mr. Combs’s related businesses, but no one dared to speak up against their frightening and ferocious boss.”
Ventura released a statement: “After years in silence and darkness, I am finally ready to tell my story, and to speak up on behalf of myself and for the benefit of other women who face violence and abuse in their relationships.”
Her lawyer said that the “I’ll Be Missing You” rapper tried to pay off his client rather than deal with the lawsuit.
“Mr. Combs offered Ms. Ventura eight figures to silence her and prevent the filing of this lawsuit,” her attorney Doug Wigdor told Deadline. “She rejected his efforts and decided to give a voice to all woman who suffer in silence. Ms. Ventura should be applauded for her bravery.”
And what does Kid Cudi have to do with all this?
Ventura alleges in her lawsuit that while she was dating the “Day ‘n’ Nite” rapper in 2012, Diddy said he would blow up Cudi’s car. According to the lawsuit, the car “exploded in his driveway” around that time.
A spokesman for Cudi confirmed the story to the New York Times: “This is all true.”
The lawsuit says further that Combs “hit her several times, and then kicked her in the back as she tried to run out the door” when he found emails the two had exchanged.
What is Diddy saying?
The rap mogul’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman flatly denies Ventura’s allegations. He contends that his client is actually the victim here — of extortion.
“For the past 6 months, Mr. Combs, has been subjected to Ms. Ventura’s persistent demand of $30 million, under the threat of writing a damaging book about their relationship, which was unequivocally rejected as blatant blackmail,” Brafman said, per the Hollywood Reporter. “Despite withdrawing her initial threat, Ms. Ventura has now resorted to filing a lawsuit riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr. Combs’s reputation and seeking a pay day.”
How strong is her case?
Attorney Judie Saunders, a former prosecutor who leads the sex abuse department at ASK LLP, tells Yahoo Entertainment that “the allegations do carry weight.”
She points to lawsuit being filed under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which allows people who say they experienced sexual assault to take legal action even though the statute of limitations has expired. That law expires next week.
“I would say that the fact that this young lady knew that this may be the last time that she has to speak out because of this closing window … very much falls in line with [other] survivors,” says Saunders, who supports eliminating such statutes of limitations altogether. “The humiliation and the shame. They don’t want to speak out, they don’t want to say anything. And it does take bravery in light of that one, just in general to speak out against sexual violence, but then to speak to … a powerful individual about these sexual allegations. So I would say that they are significant.”
Saunders says cases like this often come down to who the public believes, because no one else knows what went on in a private setting. Who can get to the press first? Here, though, there are incidents that happened in front of others, which Saunders believes will strengthen the case against the music icon.
Will the case go to trial?
Saunders points out that there’s been a trend of defendants, even when there’s “overwhelming evidence” against them, hitting back with their own allegations, even defamation lawsuits.
“There is a good chance that this may not settle. If the attorneys take what I see as a trend to be more aggressive and to go after the accuser, they definitely will have the resources to dig up dirt, if there’s any,” Saunders says, “and to really intimidate, legally intimidate, publicly intimidate and engage their PR machines to intimidate these accusers.”
This fear of retaliation is often what keeps victims of sexual abuse from taking legal action sooner, she says.
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