Cassie’s Lawsuit Against Diddy, Explained

Cassie sued Diddy in federal court on November 16, accusing the hip-hop mainstay of rape and a decade-long pattern of abuse that began when she was 19 years old. The R&B singer, who was once signed to Diddy’s label, Bad Boy Records, alleges sex trafficking, human trafficking, sexual battery, sexual assault, and gender-motivated violence, among other causes of action. The filing claims his controlling behavior started when she met him in 2005. After she signed a deal with Diddy’s record label the following year, he allegedly exerted complete control over her life, including her apartment, car, clothing, and even her medical records, to keep her under his thumb. According to the lawsuit, he went so far as targeting rapper Kid Cudi, who briefly dated Cassie in 2011 during a rough patch in Diddy and Cassie’s relationship, she alleges. Just one day after Cassie filed the lawsuit, she settled with Diddy out of court.

As the dust cleared, multiple accusers stepped forward, detailing their own sexual-assault allegations against Diddy in the months following Cassie’s explosive lawsuit. Federal agents got involved on March 25, with Homeland Security Investigations raiding Diddy’s Los Angeles and Miami properties in connection to an alleged sex-trafficking case involving him. A previously unseen surveillance video emerged on May 17. The footage obtained by CNN shows Diddy physically assault Cassie in a hotel room in 2016.

Below, everything to know about the lawsuit, the settlement, the mounting allegations, what appears to be a criminal case against the fallen mogul, and the brutal footage.

The lawsuit alleges several instances of abuse committed by Diddy, including rape, battery, and forced sex acts with male sex workers. In the filing, Cassie depicts the mogul, head of her former label and then–romantic partner, as a textbook abuser — luring her into what she first perceived as a fatherly, protective relationship, only to find herself in an unequal, and violent, sexual relationship. Diddy successfully kept her under his thumb through his alleged intimidation tactics, which consisted of blowing up a man’s car, dangling a friend over a 17th-floor balcony, and asking her to carry his gun in her purse. She never went to the police out of fear that it “would merely give Mr. Combs another excuse to hurt her.” Diddy denied the allegations.

“Cassie — Ms. Casandra Ventura — was held down by Mr. Combs and endured over a decade of his violent behavior and disturbed demands,” the lawsuit reads. “For Ms. Ventura, the ‘dark times’ were those she spent trapped by Mr. Combs in a cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking.” Diddy first expressed romantic interest in Cassie in 2006, the lawsuit claims, when his makeup artist mentioned that he was “interested.” Soon after, the young star is said to have been drawn into his jet-setting, drug-fueled lifestyle.

Once they entered a romantic relationship, Diddy and his inner circle allegedly controlled every aspect of her life. The lawsuit claims those close to the founder of Bad Boy Records turned a blind eye to physical abuse. “Beatings were witnessed by Mr. Combs’ staff and employees,” the suit read, “but no one dared to speak up against their frightening and ferocious boss.” Cassie said she never went to the police for fear that it would give Diddy “an excuse to hurt her.” In one instance of abuse in 2009, he allegedly kicked her repeatedly in the face, making her bleed, and had his staff hide her in a hotel room. “Every time she hid, Mr. Combs’s vast network of corporations and affiliated entities found her, and those who worked for Mr. Combs’s companies implored her to return to him,” the filing stated. “Many went as far as to explicitly state that her failure to return to Mr. Combs would hinder her success in the entertainment industry.”

According to the suit, Cassie suffered memory loss from copious substance use and suicidal ideation during her relationship with Diddy. The court papers cite an instance in which MRI results went directly to Diddy.

The suit named Diddy, whose real name is Sean Combs, and his associated business entities — Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy Records, Epic Records, Combs Enterprises, and Doe Corps — pointing to a widespread complicity in the allegations. Cassie sought an unspecified amount in compensatory damages.

Elsewhere in the filing, Cassie alleges Diddy forced her to take part in “freak offs,” or an arrangement in which she had no choice but to plan and engage in sex acts with male sex workers while he masturbated. The encounters continued for years in high-end hotels across the country and sometimes occurred as often as once a week, the lawsuit read. Diddy took photos and filmed the encounters. Cassie would delete videos shot on her phone to no avail — once, she was forced to watch footage on a flight that she thought she had gotten rid of.

Following an “FO” in 2016, he allegedly paid a hotel $50,000 to erase hallway surveillance footage of an intoxicated Diddy throwing glass vases at Cassie when she tried to escape after he gave her a black eye. She would take copious amounts of drugs “to disassociate during these horrific encounters,” including “ecstasy, cocaine, GHB, ketamine, marijuana, and alcohol in excessive amounts.” The excessive substance use led to addiction, Cassie said.

The lawsuit suggested Diddy blew up Kid Cudi’s car in 2012 in retaliation for the “Up Up & Away” rapper’s brief relationship with Cassie. Diddy once said he would target him. “Around that time,” the suit says, “Kid Cudi’s car exploded in his driveway.” In a statement through his spokesperson, Cudi confirmed Cassie’s account. “This is all true,” he told the New York Times.

Diddy forced his way into her home and raped her in 2018, according to the filing, while she “repeatedly said ‘no’ and tried to push him away.” Following the incident, Cassie left him for good. She ended her association with Bad Boy in 2019.

The two parties did not disclose terms of the settlement, which came just one day after Cassie filed the lawsuit. “We have decided to resolve this matter amicably,” Diddy said in a statement on November 18. “I wish Cassie and her family all the best. Love.” By reaching an agreement out of court, Diddy avoided new, likely damaging evidence being made available during the process of legal discovery. “Just so we’re clear, a decision to settle a lawsuit, especially in 2023, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing,” Ben Brafman, a lawyer for Diddy, said in a statement on November 20. “Mr. Combs’ decision to settle the lawsuit does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims. He is happy they got to a mutual settlement and wishes Ms. Ventura the best.”

Cassie’s civil suit was brought under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that gives victims of sexual abuse, who were 18 or older at the time of the alleged abuse, a one-year window to bring cases in New York after any statutes of limitations have expired. The window closes next week. “With the expiration of New York’s Adult Survivors Act fast approaching,” Cassie told the Times on November 16, “it became clear that this was an opportunity to speak up about the trauma I have experienced and that I will be recovering from for the rest of my life.” Cassie’s filing mentions the law as well: “Thanks to the passage [of the act in New York and California], she is now ready and able to also confront her abuser, and to hold him and those who enabled his abuse accountable for their actions.”

Singer-songwriter Tiffany Red published an open letter to Diddy in Rolling Stone on December 7, corroborating Cassie’s claims. Red said she became close to the R&B singer in 2015 while writing an album that Diddy “never released.” The musician was also present at Cassie’s 29th-birthday party where Diddy allegedly screamed and cursed at her. After his verbal abuse disrupted karaoke with friends, Red claimed she saw the rapper drag a drugged Cassie to a “freak off” in the middle of the night. She also said Cassie confided the physical abuse to her on a separate occasion. Diddy’s treatment of herself and her friend triggered PTSD, paranoia, and anxiety.

“The power imbalance makes it nearly impossible to fight back and terrifying to speak up,” Red wrote in her letter. “But despite that, here I am, standing beside my friend. There are moments in life when some of us have to face the hard choice of speaking truth to power or not. This is one of those moments.”

50 Cent immediately got to work on a documentary about Diddy’s sexual-assault allegations. The rapper confirmed the news in a tweet on December 7. “G-Unit Film & Television proceeds from this Documentary will go to victims of Sexual Assault and Rape!” 50 wrote alongside a clip from the project. In the footage, former Bad Boy Records rapper Mark Curry describes the bacchanals hosted by Diddy and allegations that he would spike Champagne with drugs for women to consume. He claims they would become “real, real slippery” not knowing they were drugged. G-Unit Film & Television will produce the film.

Kesha changed the lyrics of her chart-topping 2009 hit “Tik Tok” seemingly in response to the allegations, per USA Today. The song originally opens with the line “Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy.” In her performance on November 19, however, the song began, “Wake up in the morning feeling like me.” 50 Cent commented on the settlement in a now-deleted Instagram post, insinuating that Diddy is not yet in the clear, Complex reported. “He paid that money real quick, should have done that before the sharks saw the blood in the water and here they come in 5,4,3,2,1 every woman he put his hand on,” he wrote on November 18.

Former Danity Kane member Aubrey O’Day responded to the allegations on November 16. She expressed support for Cassie, tweeting she’s been “trying to tell y’all.” She attached screenshots of news headlines about the lawsuit. Danity Kane was formed by Diddy on MTV’s Making the Band in 2005. O’Day’s former bandmate, Dawn Richard, also shared a message of support for Cassie. “Praying for Cassie and her family, for peace and healing,” Richard tweeted that same day. “You are beautiful and brave. ❤️.”

Diddy has denied all allegations of wrongdoing. “Enough is enough,” Diddy tweeted in a statement on December 6 after facing a total of five lawsuits in recent weeks. “For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation, and my legacy.” He pointed fingers at victims, saying they were “looking for a quick payday.”

Multiple accusers hit Diddy with an avalanche of lawsuits in the weeks after Cassie sued him for sexual assault. At the time of writing, five additional victims stepped forward, leveling similar claims against the ousted CEO. Producer Lil Rod, real name Rodney Jones, sued Diddy for sexual assault and sex trafficking on March 4, among other claims, while working on The Love Album from September 2022 to November 2023. Attorneys for the producer describe Diddy’s Bad Boy businesses as a “RICO enterprise” that failed to protect employees and associates from the former mogul. Jones alleges Diddy neglected to compensate him for his work on the album.

A woman filed a claim with the Southern District Court of New York on December 6, alleging Diddy, Bad Boy Records executive Harve Pierre, and a third assailant gang raped her when she was 17 after trafficking her across state lines in 2003. “Seeing two other women bravely speak out against Mr. Combs and Mr. Pierre, respectively, gave Ms. Doe the confidence to tell her story as well,” the attorneys for the accuser wrote in her December filing. Diddy’s lawyers filed formal appearances against this case on December 21 and denied the claims in court documents filed February 20, alleging he “never participated in, witnessed, or was or is presently aware of any misconduct, sexual or otherwise” in relation to the plaintiff.

Last Thanksgiving weekend, Combs was hit with two separate lawsuits accusing him of sexual assault and a third accusing his company of negligence and workplace violence. The first comes from a former Syracuse University college student who accuses him of drugging and sexually assaulting the victim, filming the act, and showing it as a form of “revenge porn,” writes Rolling Stone. The second one accuses him and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall of alleged rape and assault against the plaintiff and her friend in 1990 or 1991. Days after Combs reportedly sexually assaulted the victim, he went back to her place of residence and violently attacked them, reports Rolling Stone. A woman named Pierre and Diddy’s business entities in a sexual assault and workplace harassment lawsuit as well, claiming “Pierre engaged in a yearlong pattern of grooming” that eventually turned violent on “multiple occasions” between 2016 and 2017, per USA Today.

Additional allegations resurfaced after Cassie’s lawsuit first came to light. A 2019 interview with Virginia V detailed alleged instances of physical abuse. In a conversation with the controversial internet personality Tasha K, Diddy’s ex-girlfriend accused the CEO of once “stomping” on her stomach, “punching” her, and trying to pay her to abort their child. “He stomped on my stomach really hard — like, took the wind out of my breath,” Virginia V, whose real name is Gina Huynh, claimed. “I couldn’t breathe. He kept hitting me. I was pleading to him, ‘Can you just stop? I can’t breathe.’” She added that “everyone” around Diddy “allowed” the abuse to occur. “He was mentally, emotionally and physically abusing me. He would always compare me to Cassie and tell me that I’m the bad one, she’s a good one,” she remembered.

Diddy’s former personal chef, Cindy Ruela, filed a lawsuit against him in 2017, claiming sexual harassment, failure to pay overtime, and retaliation. Ruela alleged Diddy would regularly ask her to serve food to him and his friends “immediately following sexual activity.” The men would be naked during the “post-coital” meals, according to the lawsuit, with Diddy once asking if she liked his body. He settled the lawsuit with Ruela in 2019. No terms were divulged.

In the years prior, Diddy allegedly assaulted his son’s football coach in 2015, was rumored to have fought Cudi at a club in 2012, and was sued for ordering a promoter’s assault in 2007. In the ’90s, he pleaded guilty to a reduced assault charge after he attacked the president of Interscope Records with “a chair, a telephone and a champagne bottle” over a “blasphemous” Nas video that includes a scene of two men crucified. The judge sentenced him to one day in an anger-management program.

Federal agents raided Diddy’s Los Angeles and Miami properties on March 25 in connection to an alleged sex-trafficking investigation, multiple outlets reported. While Diddy’s sons Justin and King appear to have been handcuffed during the Los Angeles search, Diddy was not present for the raids. The executive was spotted pacing around the Miami airport by TMZ. Diddy’s private jet landed in Antigua and Barbuda that same day, but he was not onboard the flight.

On May 17, CNN released an explicit surveillance video of Diddy physically abusing Cassie that aligns with allegations the singer made in last year’s lawsuit. The footage, compiled from multiple camera angles dated March 5, 2016, shows a towel-clad Diddy and his then-girlfriend Cassie at the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles. The altercation begins in a hallway when Diddy grabs Cassie by the back of her neck and slams her to the floor. He then kicks her and drags her by her sweatshirt as she lies motionless. As Cassie slowly stands up, Diddy returns, shoves her, and throws an object in her direction. “The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behavior of Mr. Combs,” Douglas H. Wigdor, a lawyer for Cassie, said in a statement. “Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms. Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”

This post has been updated.