In the past few weeks, everyone from 50 Cent to Charlamagne Tha God to Aubrey O’Day to Chaka Khan’s adult daughter has taken the opportunity to speak out against Sean “Diddy” Combs, whose physical abuse of his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura was caught on recently unearthed surveillance video.
Combs, who is at the center of several lawsuits accusing him of sexual misconduct and rape, was sued by a seventh accuser just this week. Former FIT student April Lampros describes harrowing physical and emotional abuse that she allegedly experienced at the hands of the rapper and mogul. And during the fourth and final alleged assault, the suit states, Combs was in “a very public relationship” with Jennifer Lopez.
As the charges against Combs continue to stack up, some of his other exes have begun to come forward to denounce his actions, including Ventura. But Lopez has remained conspicuously silent.
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“Domestic Violence is THE issue. It broke me down to someone I never thought I would become,” Ventura wrote on Instagram on Thursday. “With a lot of hard work, I am better today, but I will always be recovering from my past.”
Misa Hylton, the mother of Combs’ son Justin, said on Tuesday that the violent video of Combs and Ventura had left her “heartbroken that Cassie must relive the horror of her abuse,” and that her “heart goes out to [Ventura]. I know exactly how she feels, and through my empathy, it has triggered my own trauma.”
So where exactly is Lopez in all this?
To be clear, she didn’t just have a fling with Combs. They dated for two years after meeting on a music video set in 1999. Just months later, Combs and the megastar actress were arrested together following a nightclub shooting in New York City in December 1999.
According to reports, the shootout began as Lopez was leaving the club at 2:20 a.m., and Combs accidentally knocked a drink out of a patron’s hand. The involved parties then began throwing money at one another, as the story goes; and gunshots rang out, leaving three people injured.
Lopez and Combs then made their vehicular escape, but were pulled over by the police and found to be in possession of a stolen 9mm handgun in the trunk. Both were arrested.
NYPD Detective Derrick Parker told the Post that during the 14 hours Lopez spent in lockup before being released without being charged, “Her mother was yelling at J.Lo in Spanish and she was really mad at Jennifer. I heard her say, ‘I told you not to get involved with (him).’” Two sources in law enforcement added to the Post that the Lopez-Combs shooting could be reinvestigated as part of the several new sexual misconduct lawsuits that have been filed against him.
For her part, Lopez told Elle in 2000 that the shooting incident was “a complete nightmare from beginning to end. I was scared to death in the car. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. No one did.” Lopez and Combs ended up parting ways in 2001, and in a 2003 interview with Vibe, Lopez cited his infidelity as the main reason behind their split.
But 23 years later, the This Is Me… Now star has gone totally mum on Comb’ violent behavior.
This week, the Daily Mail reported that an anonymous source had “exclusively” told them that Lopez “is aware and has seen what Diddy did and is tremendously disappointed,” but that she hasn’t spoken out because “it is not her story to tell.”
The source then added, “If she is asked about it in a future interview, she will cross that path as and when it happens, but she won’t address it publicly and will not put herself in that conversation on purpose.”
So far, at least, Lopez’s interviewers have been avoiding the question. Combs did not come up at all in a recent sit-down Lopez did with Jimmy Kimmel, or in any other of her recent interviews for that matter.
The Daily Beast has made repeated attempts to ask Jennifer Lopez for comment on the allegations against Combs but has not received a response.
From a PR standpoint, and casting a generous eye on the situation, one could attribute Lopez’s continued silence to the fact that any sort of comment on the matter would be disastrous for her. It would cast more light on Lopez’s previous closeness with Combs, re-cementing it in the public imagination.
And any future interviewers who are considering asking her for her take should beware.
Just this week, Lopez demonstrated that she feels zero obligation to answer basic, fair questions from the press. During a Netflix press junket in Mexico, in response to being asked whether the rumors are true that she will be divorcing husband Ben Affleck, Lopez shot back, “You know better than that.”
