The trial that began this week in Manhattan is ostensibly about the alleged actions of one famous man, Sean Combs aka Diddy. But it’s Cassie Ventura, the R&B singer known as Cassie, whose extraordinary bravery has captivated the world.
Once a fresh-faced and talented artist known for her 2006 hits Me & U and Long Way 2 Go, the starlet soon vanished from the charts, barely appearing in public by the 2010s. Now, the entire world has learned the private torture she says she was enduring during this period at the hands of Combs, who has been charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking in federal court.
The mogul had signed Ventura to his record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, when she was just 19, and they began dating. Soon after, prosecutor Emily A. Johnson said in her opening statement, Combs began abusing Ventura. Over the next decade, Combs allegedly forced her to engage in drug-fueled orgies called “freak-offs,” assaulted her physically and sexually, and kept her career and life on ice by controlling her financially. She never made another album.
“If Cassie didn’t do what the defendant wanted, the consequences were severe,” said Johnson. “Physically, the defendant beat her viciously, exploding over even the tiniest slight and beating her to show who was in charge…the defendant taught Cassie that defying him could and often would end in violence. And when she tried to run away, he always found her.”
But the jurors did not have to take Johnson’s word for it. Ventura, now 38, has testified for nearly a week in Combs’ trial, reliving every painful detail of the physical and mental abuse she suffered in graphic detail. The incidents to which she has testified are nothing short of horrifying. They have shocked the world with their depravity, with the idea that a woman who seemed to be living at the center of money, power, and fame could be suffering this way behind closed doors.
Through it all, Ventura has remained steadfast. Reporters from the courtroom have described her as “composed,” quiet but strong. Forced to relive more than a decade of what she described as an unending hell of torture and abuse, she’s kept her focus and her grit. She’s not only spent hours on the stand as a witness for the prosecution, but faced two days of adversarial grilling from Combs’ defense team, who have sought to paint the relationship and the sexual acts that occurred between them as consensual.
And she’s done it all while eight and a half months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine. Ventura is so pregnant, in fact, that the judge in the case, Arun Subramanian, has insisted that she finish her testimony by Friday because of the legitimate fear that she could go into labor over the weekend.
It’s hard to fathom the mental fortitude that Ventura must have in order to do this. Indeed, experts say it is hard for any survivor, famous or not, to have the courage to testify about what happened to them, especially because domestic violence is still stigmatized and misunderstood.