Cassie Ventura and Sean “Diddy” Combs attend the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018, in New York City. | Source: John Shearer / Getty
A lawyer for Sean “Diddy” Combs has responded to a new bombshell lawsuit filed by his longtime ex-girlfriend who is accusing the hip-hop mogul of rape and abuse during the course of their nearly 10-year-long relationship.
High-powered celebrity attorney Ben Brafman suggested the allegations in the lawsuit by singer Cassie, real name Cassandra Elizabeth Ventura, were the result of unsuccessful attempts at blackmailing Diddy and demanding tens of millions of dollars in return for her silence about details of their relationship.
Cassie’s lawsuit is damning and at least one of the accusations has been corroborated by a well-known third party who was allegedly the victim of Diddy’s jealousy.
The New York Times first reported about the lawsuit on Thursday afternoon and included the allegations that Diddy not only raped her but also kept her on drugs in an effort to control her sexually and physically assaulted and abused her on multiple occasions.
“After years in silence and darkness,” Cassie said in a statement, “I am finally ready to tell my story, and to speak up on behalf of myself and for the benefit of other women who face violence and abuse in their relationships.”
But Brafman, whose clientele includes the likes of former NFL star Plaxico Burress, economist Dominique Strauss-Kahn, “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli and disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein, suggested Cassie is simply motivated by money and not the truth.
“Mr. Combs vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations. For the past six months, Mr. Combs has been subjected to Ms. Ventura’s persistent demand of $30 million, under the threat of writing a damaging book about their relationship, which was unequivocally rejected as blatant blackmail,” Brafman said in a statement. “Despite withdrawing her initial threat, Ms. Ventura has now resorted to filing a lawsuit riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr. Combs’s reputation and seeking a payday.”
Cassie’s lawyer said the opposite is true and that it is Diddy who has been trying to pay off the singer in exchange for her silence.
“Mr. Combs offered Ms. Ventura eight figures to silence her and prevent the filing of this lawsuit,” Douglas Wigdor told the New York Times. “She rejected his efforts.”
Some of the details of the lawsuit as reported by the New York Times paint a picture of Diddy as an intimidating, controlling, physically abusive and sex-trafficking partner who gave Cassie “copious amounts of drugs” and beat her “multiple times each year” over the course of nearly a decade.
The lawsuit also accuses Diddy of punching Cassie in the face until she began bleeding and even claims he was behind rapper Kid Cudi’s car exploding out of jealousy that he was dating Cassie.
“This is all true,” Kid Cudi’s rep told the New York Times.
More from the New York Times on some of the more salacious aspects of the lawsuit:
A few years into Ms. Ventura’s relationship with Mr. Combs, the suit says, he began coercing her “to engage in a fantasy of his called ‘voyeurism,’” in which she was directed to have sex with a succession of male prostitutes, while Mr. Combs watched, masturbated, took pictures and shot video.
According to the suit, Mr. Combs called these encounters “freak offs,” which involved costumes, like masquerade masks and lingerie. They continued for years, taking place at high-end hotels across the United States and in Mr. Combs’s homes. The suit says that he instructed Ms. Ventura to search the websites of escort services to procure male sex workers.
Drugs were supplied at these events, which Ms. Ventura’s suit says she took because they “allowed her to disassociate during these horrific encounters.”
Diddy has yet to respond to the lawsuit, which was filed with one week to spare under an expanded statute of limitations in New York State for lawsuits alleging sexual assault.
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