NEW YORK (AP) — The R&B singer Cassie returns to the witness stand Wednesday after a day spent recounting grotesque and humiliating details of life with her ex-boyfriend, Sean “Diddy” Combs.
During her first day of testimony Tuesday at Combs’ sex trafficking trial, Cassie described being pressured into degrading sexual encounters with paid sex workers. She also recounted being beaten numerous times by Combs when she did things that displeased him — like smiling at him the wrong way.
“You make the wrong face and the next thing I knew I was getting hit in the face,” she said.
Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, accused Combs of gaining her submission by threatening to publicly release videos of her with male sex workers.
Combs’ attorneys have acknowledged Combs could be violent but maintain that the sexual acts were consensual. They say nothing he did amounted to sex trafficking or racketeering — the charges that he faces.
Lawyers for Combs have yet to cross-examine Cassie, a type of questioning that will give them an opportunity to challenge her credibility or poke holes in her accounts of what happened.
The trial is expected to last about two months.
Prosecutors have accused Combs of exploiting his status as a powerful music executive to violently force women into drugged-up sex parties he called “freak offs.”
Cassie met Combs in 2005, when she was 19 and just at the start of a career as a singer, model and actor. She had a hit song, “Me & U,” in 2006 off an album released by Combs’ Bad Boy Records.
Combs, who was 37 when they met, nurtured her career early on and also became her boyfriend for a decade.
Cassie left Combs’ record label in 2019 and then sued him in 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. She told jurors during her testimony Tuesday that there were loving moments during their relationship but that Combs was always controlling and often violent.
Cassie said she was 22 when Combs first asked her to do a “freak off,” with the first one occurring in his Los Angeles home with a male stripper that left her feeling dirty and confused, but relieved that Combs was happy.
“It was his fantasy,” she said. “He was controlling the whole situation. He was directing it.”
Combs, 55, has been jailed since September. He faces at least 15 years in prison if convicted.
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