Every now and then over the past few years, someone would ask: Whatever happened to Cassie? The R&B singer and her ethereal voice once seemed destined for superstardom, but instead, her career languished after only a couple of captivating hits and several false starts. The mystery has haunted Reddit, YouTube, and culture websites, and now, the singer’s lawsuit against Diddy might help illuminate the truth.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court, Cassie—whose legal name is Casandra Ventura—alleged that during their relationship, she endured a “cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking” at the hands of her ex and boss, Sean “Diddy” Combs.
According to Ventura’s complaint, Combs allegedly beat her repeatedly throughout their relationship, urged her to take drugs she did not want to take, and forced her to have sex with male sex workers while he photographed and filmed the encounters. Ventura’s lawsuit also states that Combs raped her after their relationship had ended.
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Attorney Ben Brafman called Ventura’s allegations “offensive and outrageous” in a statement on behalf of Combs. The attorney claimed that Ventura had been trying to “blackmail” Combs for $30 million by saying she planned to detail her abuse in a book—and that his client refused. Meanwhile, Ventura’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, hit back by saying, “Mr. Combs 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 women who suffer in silence. Ms. Ventura should be applauded for her bravery.”
Ventura’s self-titled debut album, Cassie, dropped in 2006, captivating a dedicated school of R&B fans with its minimalist, cutting-edge production. The album sold moderately well and generated positive reviews, and its lead single, “Me & U,” reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified platinum later that year. The album’s style went on to inspire future R&B heavy-hitters like Kelela and Jhene Aiko, according to Rolling Stone—which has dubbed Ventura one of the greatest “one-album wonders” in music history.
Although the singles from her first album, particularly “Me & U,” became inescapable nightclub fixtures at the time of their release, Ventura seemed to spark a certain kind of misogynistic animosity from the public. She struggled during live performances and, per The Guardian, wrote on MySpace that she was working to overcome her stage fright. As Vice recalled in 2014, internet users had once even petitioned for her record label—Combs’ label, Bad Boy Records—to axe her from its roster. At one point, in 2007, a rumor spread that Bad Boy had, in fact, dropped her—a claim Combs denied at the time.
Ventura made her acting debut in 2008 in Step Up 2 and released a flurry of one-off, non-charting singles over the next couple of years, including “Official Girl” with Lil Wayne and “Let’s Get Crazy” with Akon. She signed with Interscope in 2009 (the same year the label signed a deal with Combs and Bad Boy), to no avail. According to the hip-hop magazine XXL, in 2015, she was one of only four artists still signed with Bad Boy (including Combs himself) after dozens of other artists had left the label over the years.
In spite of several attempts at a sophomore record—and just as many leaked tracks along the way—a studio follow-up never came. Instead, Ventura has released several singles and only one official mixtape, the well-reviewed RockaByeBaby, which she released in 2013 after an entity called The Cassie Collective dropped a trilogy of mixtapes in 2012.
In his Pitchfork review of RockaByeBaby, critic Miles Raymer wrote, “There’s no gap between her pop star side and her nocturnal-minimalist-R&B sex kitten side anymore—now they slink up against each other salaciously on tracks like ‘Addiction’ that deliver hooks and bedroom atmospherics in equal measure.”
The fits and starts of Ventura’s career as Cassie have long fascinated (and perplexed) the public. In 2012, when she spoke with The Guardian about her latest attempt to put out a second album, the paper’s headline speculated that her “constant disappearing acts merely fuel her mystique.” Meanwhile, the newspaper noted that Vibe deputy editor Clover Hope had previously speculated the opposite—that Ventura’s elusive public image had only hurt her. As Hope put it, “People don’t know what to make of her because they don’t know anything about her.”
When The Guardian asked her in 2012 about her early success, Ventura said, “I was so naïve back then, with no idea about what the [music] industry was like, or what I was supposed to be having fun with. Everything I did felt quite rushed along to keep up with the momentum. It was insane.”
According to her lawsuit filed this week, Ventura and Combs met in 2005, when she was 19 years old and he was 37. Two years later, Combs had signed Ventura to his label, Bad Boy Records, and allegedly “lured” the young singer into a relationship—one in which he was not only her partner but also “her boss, one of the most powerful men in the entertainment industry, and a vicious, cruel, and controlling man nearly two decades her senior.”
The two dated on and off for more than a decade before parting ways in October 2018. Ventura’s lawsuit alleges that afterward, she joined Combs for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Malibu to solidify the breakup—and that instead, Combs went home with her and raped her.
In 2019, TMZ ran a report in which “sources” claimed that Ventura had cheated on Combs with a personal trainer whom he’d hired, in the tabloid’s words, “to keep Cassie in shape.” Sources close to Ventura and trainer Alex Fine countered that they had not started dating until after the breakup. The two married in 2019, and in 2022, when Combs released his first new song in seven years, “Gotta Move On,” he was apparently still not over it: “You found a new man, so I gotta move on,” the lyrics read. “Guess you got a new agenda, with someone you barely know / I won’t say you’re wrong, guess you had to move on.”
Ventura’s lawsuit observes that while accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award that same year at the 2022 BET Awards, Combs mentioned her in his speech.“I have to give a special shoutout, thank you, love, to the people that was really there for me,” he said—including “Cassie, for holding me down in the dark times, love.” Ventura’s complaint, meanwhile, argues that she “was held down by Mr. Combs and endured over a decade of his violent behavior and disturbed demands.”
According to her complaint, Ventura left Bad Boy in 2018. The lawsuit states that she “struggled with the physical and mental manifestations of her trauma” after her “escape” from the relationship and that she “credits her children with saving her from the trauma that had consumed over a decade of her life.”
Since her breakup with Combs, the lawsuit states, Ventura has been able to rebuild her life and confront the experiences she’s endured. “Thanks to the passage of New York’s Adult Survivors’ Act and California’s Sexual Abuse Accountability and Cover-Up Act, she is now ready and able to also confront her abuser, and to hold him and those who enabled his abuse accountable for their actions.”
