In 2022, Sean Combs acquired the Lifetime Achievement Award on the BET Awards. As a brand new lawsuit filed by Casandra Ventura recounts, he thanked his former girlfriend and Dangerous Boy Information signee in his acceptance speech. “I’ve to present a particular shoutout, thanks, love, to the those that was actually there for me.” He named a number of folks, together with Ventura, higher generally known as the R&B singer Cassie, “for holding me down at the hours of darkness occasions, love.”
Within the go well with, filed on Thursday in Manhattan federal court docket, Ventura stated that she spent these occasions trapped by Combs in a yearslong cycle of abuse, violence, and intercourse trafficking. The criticism alleges a disturbing sample of assault and retaliation that passed off at some stage in their relationship starting when a 37-year previous Combs, a longtime energy participant in hip-hop, met Ventura as an aspiring 19-year previous entertainer in 2005. He signed her to his high-flying label and inside a number of years, based on the go well with, lured her into “an ostentatious, fast-paced, and drug-fueled life-style, and right into a romantic relationship with him her boss, one of the crucial highly effective males within the leisure trade, and a vicious, merciless, and controlling man practically twenty years her senior.”
Ventura claimed within the go well with that Combs repeatedly beat her and compelled her to have intercourse with male prostitutes whereas he filmed the encounters. In line with the go well with, Combs described these encounters as “freak offs” designed to meet a fantasy he known as “voyeurism,” they usually typically concerned drug use that finally despatched Ventura on a path in direction of habit. In direction of the tip of their relationship in 2018, Ventura stated within the criticism, Combs compelled his means into her dwelling and raped her.
In one of many alleged “freak offs” in 2016, the go well with stated, Combs punched Ventura within the face and gave her a black eye. When he fell asleep and he or she tried to go away their Los Angeles resort room, Ventura claimed, he wakened and adopted her into the hallway, the place he threw glass vases at her. In line with the go well with, Combs paid the resort $50,000 for the footage.
“After years in silence and darkness,” Ventura stated in an announcement. “I’m lastly prepared to inform my story, and to talk up on behalf of myself and for the good thing about different ladies who face violence and abuse of their relationships.” She filed the lawsuit beneath the Grownup Survivors Act in New York, enacted final yr, which grants alleged victims of sexual abuse a one-year window, ending subsequent week, to file civil complaints in cases the place the statute of limitations has handed.
“Mr. Combs vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations,” Combs’s lawyer Ben Brafman stated in an announcement. “For the previous 6 months, Mr. Combs, has been subjected to Ms. Ventura’s persistent demand of $30 million, beneath the specter of writing a harmful guide about their relationship, which was unequivocally rejected as blatant blackmail. Regardless of withdrawing her preliminary menace, Ms. Ventura has now resorted to submitting a lawsuit riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr. Combs’ repute and in search of a pay day.”
In response to Brafman’s assertion, Ventura’s lawyer Douglas Wigdor stated, “Mr. Comb’s supplied Ms. Ventura eight figures to silence her and forestall the submitting of this lawsuit. She rejected his efforts and determined to present a voice to all lady that suffer in silence. Ms. Ventura must be applauded for her bravery.”
In 2011, throughout a tough patch in Combs and Ventura’s relationship, based on the go well with, Ventura briefly dated the rapper Child Cudi. When Combs returned from a visit, the go well with stated, he demanded that Ventura take part in a “freak off.” Throughout this encounter, Ventura claimed, he discovered emails between her and Child Cudi on her cellphone and lunged at her with a corkscrew positioned between his fingers. Ventura ran away to Child Cudi’s dwelling, she stated, earlier than returning as a result of she felt that she wouldn’t be capable of escape Combs and his workers, whom the go well with described as his “community of enforcers.” In line with the go well with, Combs then hit her a number of occasions and kicked her within the again.
The next yr, the go well with stated, Combs instructed Ventura he was going to explode Child Cudi’s Automotive with the rapper and his mates dwelling when it occurred. “Round that point,” the go well with stated, “Child Cudi’s automobile exploded in his driveway.” (“That is all true,” a spokesperson for Child Cudi instructed the New York Occasions.)
“Mr. Combs asserted full management over Ms. Ventura’s private {and professional} life, thereby making certain her incapability to flee his maintain,” the go well with stated. “He supplied unprecedented avenues for fulfillment for the aspiring artist, however in return, demanded obedience, loyalty, and silence.”
