UPDATE, 11/18: Just one day after the explosive lawsuit was filed, Cassie Ventura and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs have settled. The New York Times reported that the pair reached a settlement, the details of which have been kept confidential. “I have decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control,” Ventura said in a statement. “I want to thank my family, fans and lawyers for their unwavering support.”
The Times pointed out that, by settling, Ventura will avoid the possibility of cross-examination by Combs’ attorneys, which is often considered to be painful and triggering by victims of rape and abuse. Combs will not have to face any potential discovery, in which the information found would be made public. Numerous people have already begun to surface with accusations against Combs, including former girlfriends and bodyguards who alleged that Combs frequently abused women.
11/7: Rapper P. Diddy, whose real name is Sean Combs, has been accused of numerous crimes by several women including coerced abortions, physical abuse, rape, and sex trafficking. One of those women, Casandra Ventura, has now filed a lawsuit against him in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Her case is bringing more attention to additional allegations against Combs.
“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,” Ventura told The New York Times.
10 years of abuse
Ventura, who went by the stage name “Cassie” for 10 years, said in her lawsuit that she first met Combs in 2005 when she was 19 and he was 37; she was signed to his label, Bad Boy Records. Within a year, people on Combs’ team began telling Ventura that he was interested in her, though the lawsuit states she was “disgusted” at the thought of them dating due to their age difference. He began positioning himself as a father figure to her, and when she turned 21, the lawsuit alleges that he forced himself on her for the first time:
At an afterparty in a hotel suite following Ms. Ventura’s 21st birthday party, Mr. Combs pulled Ms. Ventura into a bathroom and forcibly kissed her. Ms. Ventura did not consent to this unwanted contact. She immediately ran out of the bathroom and the hotel suite and cried. She told her best friend at the time about what had happened but was too scared to tell anyone else.
Combs was in a relationship with model and actress Kim Porter at the time. The next day at the Video Music Awards, Ventura alleges that Combs berated her for bringing her boyfriend. That same month, he gave Ventura a pill and instructed her to take it. He then paid a promoter to make a fake flyer about a party in Miami allegedly so Ventura would be separated from her boyfriend and travel to Florida with Combs. The lawsuit states she was scared and didn’t want to go, but she felt she had no choice:
During this trip to Miami, Mr. Combs provided Ms. Ventura with copious amounts of drugs — she became more intoxicated than she ever had before, and her intoxication lasted throughout the weekend trip. As she wanted Mr. Combs to continue to support her career, she felt she could not refuse Mr. Combs’ urging her to take more drugs. After providing her with drugs, Mr. Combs had sexual intercourse with Ms. Ventura during this trip.
Ventura and Combs entered a relationship, and he paid for her car and apartments in New York and California — both of which were within walking distance of Combs’ homes. “All aspects of Ms. Ventura’s life were controlled by either Mr. Combs or his management companies,” the lawsuit states.
READ: Forced abortion is the ultimate form of domestic violence
Throughout the relationship, Combs was physically violent to the point that Ventura required medical attention. When Ventura was 22, Combs began trafficking her in incidents he called “freak-outs,” or FOs:
Mr. Combs always supplied Ms. Ventura (and the sex worker) with copious amounts of drugs before and during the FOs. Ms. Ventura was given ecstasy, cocaine, GHB, ketamine, marijuana, and alcohol in excessive amounts during FOs, which allowed her to disassociate during these horrific encounters. It became common place to get IV fluids in the days after an FO to recover from the excessive substances pushed upon her.
In instances where she refused to participate, the lawsuit states Combs’ security team would force her to go. On multiple occasions, Ventura tried to escape, but his employees brought her back.
In September of 2018, Ventura was determined to end her relationship with Combs but alleges he raped her:
Mr. Combs forced himself into her apartment and tried to kiss Ms. Ventura. She told him to stop and attempted to push him away. Mr. Combs then forcibly pulled off Ms. Ventura’s clothing and unbuckled his belt. He proceeded to rape Ms. Ventura while she repeatedly said “no” and tried to push him away. Soon thereafter, Ms. Ventura took steps to completely separate herself from her long-time abuser, including by leaving the home that he paid for and returning the car he purchased for her. Despite moving away, Ms. Ventura’s address was posted online in early 2019, leading to fears for her safety.
Ventura underwent intensive trauma therapy, entered rehab for drug addiction, and received other medical care to deal with the injuries she suffered. The lawsuit states that she will “forever live with the physical and psychological repercussions of the over a decade of violence, fear, and exploitation she endured.” She eventually got married and had children, whom she “credits… with saving her from the trauma that had consumed over a decade of her life.”
Further allegations of abuse and forced abortion
Ventura is not the only woman to come forward. Aubrey O’Day, a singer who was part of a girl group formed by Combs, made allegations that Combs tried to prey on her. She said she was fired from the group, Danity Kane, because she “wasn’t willing to do what was expected of [her] — not talent-wise, but in other areas.”
Gene Deal, one of Combs’ former bodyguards, said Combs physically abused other past girlfriends and broke Porter’s nose. “You used to be a woman-beater,” he said in a YouTube video. “Talk about how you used to beat Misa’s [Hylton] a** … talk about how you tried to beat Kim’s a**.”
Combs’ ex-girlfriend, Virginia V, made similar claims against him — including that he would openly abuse her. In an interview with YouTuber Tasha K, Virginia V. shared that Combs coerced her into abortions.
“The first time was October 2014,” she said. “Well, I told him [I was pregnant], and he was like ‘You’re gonna get an abortion, right?’ Then, I was like I don’t know, I don’t know yet. Then, he offered me $50,000 to get rid of it, but I turned it down, because I just loved him. I wanted to… I was like, trying to prove that I wasn’t the girl that wanted him for money. I just cared about him. I just wanted him to be nice to me, that’s it.”
Tasha K. interjected, “Offering someone $50,000 to abort a baby, whew. He must really want it gone, bad.”
In August of 2022, Virginia said she got pregnant again, insinuating that there was an element of coercion to the conception. “I have this period app, and it tells me when I’m ovulating and stuff, and so I told him. I told him that I’m ovulating,” she said. “So don’t do it. But he just did it anyway, and then I got pregnant. And he, like — okay, just get an abortion. Like, no hesitation. But this time was harder for me because I had been with him for so long and I was like, really in love with him.”
Through tears, she explained, “Part of me wanted to keep it. But he didn’t want it. … I only agreed to [the abortion] because he told me to.”
READ: Britney Spears claims in tell-all memoir that Justin Timberlake urged her to abort their baby
When the abortion was completed, Combs left to go to Burning Man, a festival in the Nevada desert.
“I had to go through that, and then he went to Burning Man,” she said, crying. “He just left me, like, f***ed up. He just — he didn’t have service at Burning Man, because it’s a desert, so I couldn’t get a hold of him, or his texts weren’t coming through, but like, I was just at home, by myself, just f***ed up in my head, and he didn’t even care.”
In a statement to The New York Times, Combs’ lawyer denied the allegations against him, while Ventura’s lawyer said he offered an eight-figure sum to silence her and stop her from filing the lawsuit.
A national study on coerced abortion in America found that 64% of post-abortive women felt pressured to abort. Of those women, 65% showed signs of trauma. The study cited testimony from a former abortion business security guard who told the Massachusetts legislature that women were routinely brought to the abortion facility by their abusive partners to ensure they went through with the abortions.
In addition, a 2007 Guttmacher Institute study pointed to research that found an increased risk of violence during pregnancy as the result of the partner’s resentment towards his preborn child and his increased feelings of possessiveness over his partner.
