Cassie Ventura Reveals Black Eye, Fat Lip In Sean “Diddy” Combs Trial

“I have a black eye and a fat lip,” Cassie Ventura told the courtroom in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial Wednesday, reading aloud a text she sent to Combs after a beating from the “All About The Benjamins” performer at an L.A. hotel in 2016.

“You are sick for thinking it is okay what you’ve done. Just stay away from me,” she added with a broken voice.

The continued testimony from the very pregnant “Me & U” singer Wednesday follows a day of sordid revelations on May 13 of the wide-spread cruelty and control Ventura and federal prosecutors claim she suffered at the hands of Diddy during their decade-long relationship.

Combs responded to Ventura’s accusations with more texts imploring her to call him and falsely telling her that he was being arrested at that moment for the incident in the hotel.

In the immediate aftermath of the incident, a friend of Ventura’s called the LAPD to the singer’s nearby apartment. When the police arrived, however, Ventura declined to tell them who had given her the fat lip and black eye.

“Just in that moment, I didn’t want to hurt him that way,” she explained today. “At that moment, I wasn’t ready”.

Combs later showed up at Ventura’s apartment, banging on the door, demanding to be let in. Ventura was not at the apartment at the time, she said, today.

The court was also shown a photograph of a heavily made up Ventura wearing sunglasses just before she attended a movie premiere with Combs days after the hotel incident in March 2016. The singer said she was wearing the sunglasses to hide her black eye. She also said that as much as she tried, she could not cover up all the bruises on her body.

With only a few breaks for the expectant mother, the jury Tuesday heard tales of inflatable swimming pools full of baby oil in hotel suites, and multiple paid partners having sex for days with Ventura as Combs directed the action and pleasured himself in the corner. Over the approximately five hours Ventura was questioned by Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson, there were stories of beatings, threats of more beatings, manipulation, degradation, drugs and more drugs from a young woman who admitted she was searching for self-worth at almost any cost from a man she still says she loved and would do anything to please.

Estimated by presiding Judge Arun Subramanian to last eight to 10 weeks, the criminal trial of the much-accused and currently incarcerated Combs follows his arrest last September on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and more. Now seemingly about to have her and husband Alex Fine’s third child any day, Diddy’s ex Ventura was paid off in the tens of millions in late 2023 to quickly drop her own assault and abuse civil suit against the Bad Boy Records founder. Though withdrawn with that settlement, that short-lived suit by Ventura opened the flood gates of rape and other such accusations against Combs (with a handful now dismissed) and drove a direct path to the criminal trial underway now in Manhattan.

The 55-year-old Combs is looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars in federal prison if found guilty by the jury in this case.

As he has in every single case against him, Combs has entered a not guilty plea. The one-time mini-mogul’s defense team have admitted in various court filings and their own opening statement on May 12 that their client is a domestic violence preparator, a drug user, a self-avowed swinger and often out of control. However, with that preemptive swipe at the prosecution and having previously rejected a plea deal, they rightly insist that is not what he is charged with. They also insist that no one was coerced into anything and everyone, including Ventura, was a consenting adult in Combs so-called unconventional lifestyle.

Ventura and Combs self-described “toxic relationship” was back in the media foreground in the spring 2024 when CNN obtained and broadcast a seemingly irrefutable and now defense disputed 2016 L.A. hotel security footage of a half-naked Combs beating his then-girlfriend in the hall and dragging her back to their room.

For months, the defense alleges the footage, which their client had previously apologized for the violence he is shown committing and then deleted the apology, was doctored and doesn’t tell the whole story. Now, after repeated viewing of the footage in the trial’s first days, and May 12 testimony from the then InterContinental Hotel security guard who arrived on the scene that March day nine years ago, the Combs’ legal team is taking the stance that the footage merely shows a dust-up between lovers over a phone that spiraled out of control but de-escalated rapidly too.

Throughout Ventura’s soft-spoken and often succinct testimony on Tuesday, a sweater-wearing and white-haired Combs sat just a few feet away in the jam-packed courtroom of Judge Subramanian. Unlike the first day of the trial on Monday, the “I Need A Girl” performer was in near constant motion on May 13 as Ventura testified. Speaking and passing notes to his defense team, and shifting with apparent agitation in his chair, as the day went by, Combs looked less and less like the stuffy old man persona he was trying to pass off.

Unless she goes into labor, Ventura is expected to testify most of this week. To that, the Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos and Brian Steel-led defense are widely expected to take turns eviscerating star witness Ventura’s testimony as that of an old lover who never got over her jealousy and the fact she was not the so-called “soulmate” to Combs that the now deceased Kim Porter was. As was raised yesterday, at one point Ventura’s husband Fine may be called to testify by the defense over the issues of an alleged 2018 rape of the singer by Combs and a series of harsh and potentially threatening text messages Fine sent Combs in 2023.

Known as Victim-1, Ventura’s testimony was supposed to be followed by Victim-2, Victim-3 and Victim-4 and more recently added Victim-5. The majority of that schedule is still in place, but Victim-3 has disappeared, and the government admits they have lost contact with her. Seen as late as this past weekend as a likely roadblock the tight trial schedule going ahead to plan or grounds for a mistrial motion by the defense, the continued absence of Victim-3 was essentially waved through by Judge Subramanian earlier this week on the hopes she turns up or the feds find her soon.

Still, as sources tell me, the no-show of Victim-3 is already being penciled in as a rationale for a later mistrial motion by the defense or grounds for an appeal if the jury verdict is against Combs in early July.