Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs: Cassie found ‘freak-offs’ “humiliating”, court hears
Cassie Ventura has labelled the ‘freak-offs’ with male escorts and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs as “humiliating” during Combs’ ongoing trial in New York.
Ventura, who is eight and a half months pregnant, was in a relationship with Combs for more than a decade, and is expected to give testimony for several more days. Combs is charged with five counts of sex trafficking, racketeering, and sexual abuse. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
During the first of Ventura’s testimony sessions, she first explained what ‘freak-offs’ would entail, revealing to the court, “It basically entails the hiring of an escort and setting up this experience so that I could perform for Sean.”
She continued by saying it would involve Combs “being able to watch me with the other person and actually direct us on what we were doing,” before adding, “Eventually it became a job for me, pretty much.”
Ventura also said that ‘freak-offs’ could last between 36 hours and four days. She confirmed they involved heavy drug taking, as well as sex with “strangers”, which “took a big chunk of my life.” Ventura added: “The freak-offs became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and just try to feel normal again.”
In the later session, Ventura was probed more about ‘freak-offs’ and said of the detrimental impact it had on her mental health, “I just felt pretty horrible about myself. I felt disgusting. I was humiliated. I didn’t have those words to put together at the time, like, how horrible I really felt.”
She also claimed that her involvement was because she was worried about Combs “being violent”, and out of loyalty to him, stating, “When you really care about somebody, and you’re in love with them, you don’t want to disappoint them.”
According to the New York Times, Ventura also discussed how drugs would fuel their ‘freak-offs’, which could last up to four days, stating they used ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana, ketamine, and mushrooms at different points. “Whatever was the drug of choice at that point,” she said, before stating this would help with “dissociating” from the experience.
Ventura’s testimony will continue on May 14th.
Combs denies all of the charges.
For help, advice or more information regarding sexual harassment, assault and rape in the UK, visit the Rape Crisis charity website. In the US, visit RAINN.