After R.Kelly, another American hip-hop megastar of the 1990s in turmoil. Sean Combs, aka Puff Daddy or P. Diddy on stage, is the target of a complaint for rape and physical violence lasting more than ten years by his ex-partner, singer Cassie, accusations that the musician “fiercely” denies.
This complaint accuses Combs of having transformed the life of the 37-year-old R&B singer, dancer and model, real name Casandra Ventura, into a nightmare. The interpreter of Me & U describes “sexual” and “psychological” violence and “deviant behavior” that span more than a decade, between 2005 and 2018.
According to a 35-page court document made public Thursday by the American justice system and first revealed speak New York Times“Mr. Combs raped Ms. Ventura at her home after she tried to leave him” in 2018. She also claims to have been forced to use various drugs and have sex filmed with gigolos paid by her ex-partner .
Sean Combs, 54, would also have “often punched, kicked, slapped and trampled her, resulting in bruises, burst lips, black eyes and bleeding,” details this civil complaint filed before the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, New York.
Signed at 19 by Diddy’s label
This legal action is made possible thanks to a law in the State of New York which has allowed since November 2022, but for one year only, victims of sexual violence to file a civil complaint for prescribed facts.
Cassie’s complaint also targets the companies and labels of her former partner, musician and rap producer: Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy Records, Epic Records, Combs Enterprises and Doe Corporations 1-10.
American justice – which recorded the testimony against Cassie Ventura, who met Sean Combs in 2005 when she was 19 and he was 37 – accuses the rap star of having had “violent behavior” and “demands deviants” for “more than a decade”.
“After years of silence and darkness, I am finally ready to tell my story and speak out on my behalf and for the sake of all other women who experience violence and assault” in their relationships, Cassie wrote in a press release sent by his lawyer Douglas Wigdor. This tenor of the New York bar estimated that “no human being should endure what Ms. Ventura endured” by her “attacker.” According to her complaint, the victim “experienced a ‘dark period’, trapped by Diddy in a cycle of assault, violence and sex trafficking.”
“Sexual slavery”
Sean Combs’ New York lawyer, Ben Brafman, “fiercely” denied the allegations, which he described in a statement to AFP as “insulting and scandalous.”
The complaint describes a violent man. And “Ms. Ventura is seeking justice for the decade of life that Mr. Combs took from her through threats of violence, drug addiction, physical and psychological abuse, and sexual slavery.”
For Casandra Ventura, it “was obvious that with the very imminent expiration (end of November) of the New York law (on the protection of victims of sexual violence), I had the opportunity to speak loud and clear about the trauma that I suffered and from which I will recover during what I have left to live.
Sean Combs, 54, founded his company Bad Boy in 1993, a decade of glory for this major figure in the marketing and media coverage of the hip-hop scene, a musical and artistic movement born in New York 50 years ago, in August 1973.
Puff Daddy’s disciples include the late Notorious BIG, who died in 1997, and Mary J. Blige. Sean Combs is part of the hip-hop billionaires’ club, also thanks to his business in the alcohol industry.