Rapper and mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs can be seen physically assaulting ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in surveillance footage from 2016 published by CNN on Friday.
In the video, Combs runs down the hallway in what appears to be a hotel clad only in a towel. He appears to be chasing Ventura, who he catches up with at a bank of elevators.
Combs then grabs Ventura by the back of her head and throws her to the ground, where she remains, immobile, as he kicks her several times.
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Combs then again grabs Ventura by the back of her head and attempts to drag her back down the hallway of the hotel, before dropping her and walking away. But Combs reappears shortly afterward, lunges towards Ventura again, and then, while seated in a chair close to the elevators, throws a solid object in Ventura’s direction.
“The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behavior of Mr. Combs,” Douglas H. Wigdor, lawyer for Cassie Ventura, said in a statement responding to the video footage. “Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms. Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”
Last November, Ventura filed suit against Combs, alleging that her ex was guilty of rape and of trapping her in a “cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking.” Her suit was settled under undisclosed terms less than 48 hours after it was filed.
In March, federal agents raided Combs’ homes in Miami and Los Angeles, reportedly in connection with a sex trafficking investigation. Since last year, several parties have filed lawsuits against Combs in which he is accused of sexual misconduct and other infractions.
Ventura’s complaint reportedly references the incident that appears to take place in the hotel footage explicitly. “Around March 2016,” the complaint reads, per CNN, Combs became “extremely intoxicated and punched Ms. Ventura in the face, giving her a black eye.”
Combs “followed [Ventura] into the hallway of the hotel while yelling at her... He grabbed at her, and then took glass vases in the hallway and threw them at her, causing glass to crash around them as she ran to the elevator to escape.”
