Hip hop impresario and businessman Sean Combs was accused of rape and ongoing physical and emotional abuse by a singer formerly signed to his label with whom he had a longterm relationship.
Casandra Ventura, who performed as Cassie, filed suit against Combs on Thursday in Manhattan federal court. The lawsuit, which comes with a trigger warning at the top, lays out a breathtaking array of alleged violent behavior by Combs, including an alleged incident where he “blew up a man’s car after he learned he was interested in Ms. Ventura.”
A day after the lawsuit was filed, the two sides announced they had reached a settlement. “I have decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control. I want to thank my family, fans and lawyers for their unwavering support,” Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, said in a statement late Friday.
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Combs issued his own statement, saying: “We have decided to resolve this matter amicably. I wish Cassie and her family all the best. Love.” His lawyer, Ben Brafman, added in a separate statement that “a decision to settle a lawsuit, especially in 2023, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing. Mr. Combs‘ decision to settle the lawsuit does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims.”
Ventura’s complaint opened with a description of Combs receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2022 BET Awards, citing his acceptance speech.
“I have to give a special shoutout, thank you, love, to the people that was really there for me,” he said, specifically calling out “Cassie, for holding me down in the dark times, love.”
But, according to the complaint, Ventura “was held down by Mr. Combs and endured over a decade of his violent behavior and disturbed demands.” She suffered through a “cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking,” the complaint goes on, detailing “violent and unlawful acts” Ventura says included being raped as payback for trying to leave Combs, and being punched, kicked, and stomped by him on a regular basis.
In 2011, Combs discovered that Ventura had had a brief fling with Kid Cudi during a “rough patch” in their relationship. An enraged Combs allegedly beat her and, the next year, told Ventura he was going to blow up Kid Cudi’s car, adding that he wanted to make sure the rapper was home when it happened.
Soon after, the rapper’s vehicle exploded in his driveway, the suit says. The episode “terrified” Ventura, “as she began to fully comprehend what Mr. Combs was both willing and able to do to those he believed had slighted him.”
Among other things, Combs also forced Ventura into encounters with male sex workers while he filmed the goings-on, and made her carry his gun in her purse “just to make her uncomfortable and demonstrate how dangerous he is.” The complaint contends Ventura never approached police because she feared it “would merely give Mr. Combs another excuse to hurt her.”
“After years in silence and darkness,” Ventura said in a statement to The Daily Beast, “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.”
In a statement on behalf of Combs, Brafman called the allegations “offensive and outrageous.” He said Ventura had been trying to “blackmail” Combs for $30 million, threatening to write a book about the abuse, which his client “unequivocally rejected.”
But Douglas Wigdor, Ventura’s lawyer, countered Brafman’s claim, saying, “Mr. Comb’s offered Ms. Ventura eight figures to silence her and prevent the filing of this lawsuit. She rejected his efforts and decided to give a voice to all woman who suffer in silence. Ms. Ventura should be applauded for her bravery.”
Through a spokesperson, Kid Cudi told The New York Times, which first reported the lawsuit, that Ventura’s account of the attack on his car was “all true.”
Ventura met Combs in 2005, when she was 19 and he was 37, the complaint states. He signed her to his Bad Boy Records label, and soon “lured” Ventura into a nightmare relationship, according to the complaint.
Shortly thereafter, Combs said he was interested in “voyeurism” and told the then-22-year-old Ventura that it would “turn him on” to see her engage “with another dick.”
“The first time, Mr. Combs hired a man and brought the man to his home in Los Angeles,“ the complaint says. “The man, Mr. Combs, and Ms. Ventura wore masquerade masks, and ingested drugs. Mr. Combs directed Ms. Ventura to perform sexual acts with this man while Mr. Combs watched them. He masturbated while he directed Ms. Ventura and the man to do specific sexual acts. The entire encounter lasted multiple days.”
Combs called this type of arrangement a “Freak Off,” or “FO,” according to the complaint, and would eventually come to demand they be performed on a weekly basis. They could allegedly occur anywhere—though most often took place in hotel suites—and at any time. In one instance in 2015, Combs allegedly interrupted a surprise birthday dinner for Ventura to demand she leave with him for an FO.
“When she expressed that she did not want to go, Mr. Combs had Ms. Ventura cornered by his security staff in order to force her to leave with him,” the complaint contends.
Invariably during an FO, according to the lawsuit, Ventura would be “given ecstasy, cocaine, GHB, ketamine, marijuana, and alcohol in excessive amounts.” She was allegedly “required” to wear lingerie and paint her nails white “to contrast her nails with the skin of the Black men he hired to have sex with her.” Sometimes an intoxicated Combs would hit her in front of the sex worker.
“Ms. Ventura was repulsed by Mr. Combs’s demands, but between the physical beating and recognizing his incredible power and incredible temper,” the suit says, “Ms. Ventura became petrified of her partner and boss, and felt that she could not say no.”
At the same time, Combs—as evidenced by the alleged Kid Cudi episode—became enraged when other men paid attention to Ventura, or vice-versa, the complaint states.
“In 2015, Ms. Ventura spoke to a popular music manager at an after party in a hotel suite in Las Vegas,” it says.
“Mr. Combs saw her speaking to this manager, and sternly told her to step into the bedroom adjoining the suite. In the bedroom, Mr. Combs beat Ms. Ventura severely. She ran from corner to corner of the room, trying to avoid Mr. Combs’s beating and kicking. When she tried to lock herself in the bathroom, he pushed through, and punched and kicked her while she curled up under the toilet. Her screams were drowned out by the loud music playing in the outside area of the hotel suite.”
Ventura says she wound up with two black eyes, a burst and bruised lip, and a large welt on her forehead. According to the complaint, Combs told her that she needed to “put more makeup on, my son can’t see you like that.”
In the fall of 2018, Ventura had dinner with Combs at an Italian restaurant in Malibu, which she expected would serve to cement their breakup. Instead, Combs went home with Ventura, and raped her, the complaint states.
Ventura has struggled for years with drug and alcohol abuse issues, addictions that she says were “fueled” by Combs. Two years after meeting him, she joined him for a trip to Miami, Florida, the complaint alleges, during which he plied her with “copious amounts of drugs.”
“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,” it continues. “After providing her with drugs, Mr. Combs had sexual intercourse with Ms. Ventura during this trip.”
As their relationship continued, Ventura began using drugs and alcohol “to drown out the memories of her abuse,” the suit says. “[W]ithout being intoxicated, she suffered from horrific nightmares of the forced sexual acts that Mr. Combs demanded she participate in during the regularly scheduled FOs and of the physical beatings that she endured throughout her relationship.”
“She had difficulty eating or sleeping, and her relationships with her family suffered. During this time, she frequently had thoughts of ending her life.”
Ventura checked herself into an inpatient rehab facility to get clean, and has worked to rebuild her life, according to the complaint. Yet, for the “intensive therapy and medical care” she has required to help herself recover, Ventura says in her complaint that she “will forever live with the physical and psychological repercussions of the over a decade of violence, fear, and exploitation she endured.”
