Cassie Ventura, ex-girlfriend of rapper Sean 'Diddy' Combs, testifies at his trial, says she was humiliated, coerced into sex

Former pop singer Cassandra "Cassie" Ventura testified Tuesday that her relationship with rap music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs started with a 10-album recording contract, but quickly evolved to something else.

She said she became an unwilling participant in voyeuristic sex binges, was coerced to take drugs and have sex with male prostitutes — sometimes for days at a time.

On the second day of testimony in Manhattan federal court of the five-count racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking trial against Combs, the visibly pregnant Ventura, 38, teared up on the witness stand, describing the decade of humiliation and fear that she said she spent with the music entrepreneur.

Federal prosecutors charge that Combs used his vast multinational music, entertainment, liquor and fashion empire to stage sexual benders, dubbed "freak-offs," paying for the hotel rooms and male escorts with the help of his security personnel and executive assistants.

She said she met Combs in New York City around 2006, when she was 19 and dating a producer and beginning her recording career.

She said she would run into him at clubs and music award shows around New York. Ventura told the jury that she saw Combs as a mentor in the business and hoped that he would help grow her career.

When she was celebrating her 21st birthday in Las Vegas, she said Combs kissed her in a hotel room after they had been out all night.

"I was really confused at the time," she said. "I was a new artist. I didn’t know the lay of the land. I cried and ran off. I wasn’t familiar with an executive treating me that way, being that forward."

She said they began seeing each other more in New York, eventually having sex.

Ventura said she was still seeing the music producer at the time.

"It made me feel sneaky," she said. "I was curious. I wanted to be around him. … I wanted to be around Sean for the same reasons as everyone else. He was an exciting, entertaining guy. He had my career in his hands."

She said that she broke up with her boyfriend and became Combs' girlfriend, though not publicly, and, she found out, not exclusively.

"We spent a lot of time together," she said. “[But] now, I know in hindsight that I became one of his girlfriends. Sean Combs had a lot of girlfriends. I thought we were in a monogamous relationship."

Combs would call or text "incessantly," Ventura said. If she didn’t answer, he would sometimes have a staffer or security personnel show up at her house, she said.

She called him "controlling" and said he would give her "busy work," but her music career stalled after one album.

"A lot of what I did didn’t actually come out," she said. "It was control, control over what I was doing every second of the day."

Sometimes, Ventura said, that led to violence.

"You make the wrong face and the next thing I know, I was getting hit in the face," she said.

On Monday, prosecutors showed a 2016 video recording from a hotel security camera that showed Combs grabbing Ventura by the back of the neck and pulling her to the ground and then kicking her repeatedly before dragging her by her hoodie back to his hotel room. She said Tuesday that he was angry after she left a freak-off because he had struck her.

Ventura sued Combs in 2023 for sexual abuse and sex trafficking, but he quickly settled after the video was aired on CNN.

She said violence in the relationship happened "too frequently" and she would often get "knocked in the head, busted lip, black eye … bruises all over my body."

"If they were violent arguments, they would result in some sort of physical abuse," she told the court. "He would mash me in the head, punch me, kick me, stomp me in the head."

She said six months into the relationship, he broached the subject of voyeurism and bringing in another man to have sex with her.

"I was shocked," she said. "I wasn’t expecting it. I was scared to say anything other than, ‘OK, let’s try it.' "

She said that she wanted to "make him happy."

Ventura also said that she felt trapped. Combs paid for her apartments, clothing and jewelry, but he also threatened to take them away if she upset him.

She said she made nine more albums, but none of them were released.

"Financially, I didn’t make any money off of them," she said. "If you’re not releasing music, you’re not really doing your job. The career was stifled."

Ventura said the sex marathons became more frequent, now happening once a week.

"The freak-offs became a job where there wasn’t space for anything else, but to recover," she said.

Combs, Ventura told the court, made daily comments on her appearance,  and required her to wear white nail polish or French tips. He suggested breast implants and working out to keep her in shape, she said.

"My self-worth took a hit for the entirety of the relationship," she said.

Guns were part of the lifestyle, too, Ventura said. She saw them in his home safes in Los Angeles, Miami and New York City, she said.

She said one night, while she was high on mushrooms, he gave her a loaded pistol to carry in her bag at a nightclub, an episode reminiscent of the scenario that led to his 1999 New York trial for gun possession. He was acquitted.

Another time, while they were together in L.A., she said his bodyguard told him that his rap rival Suge Knight was in the area and he took off in an SUV, armed with guns, with his security personnel.

"I was crying," she said. "I said, ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’ "

Prosecutor Emily Johnson showed photos of half a dozen of Combs' inner circle who would help set up before the freak-offs and settle up with the hotel after they were over.

Once, there was such a mess in the hotel room after a sex bender that Combs was charged with the costs of redecorating the room, she said.

Defense lawyers have acknowledged that Combs could be abusive, physically and psychologically, but they argue that it doesn’t reach the level of a federal crime.

Ventura continues her testimony Wednesday.