Footage shows Sean Combs beating up his then girlfriend, Cassie, in a hotel hallway

Rapper Sean Combs (a.k.a. Puff Daddy or Diddy) has a long history of lawsuits. In the last six months alone, he has been sued five times in cases of violence and abuse by four women and one man. Although the lawsuits included non-explicit photographs of the performer with his alleged victims, until now it was a matter of accusations, of words. But if the statements against Coombs were already chilling, now images have come to light that provide an even more shocking testimony. CCTV footage from a hotel reportedly shows the musician beating up Casandra Ventura, an artist known as Cassie, with whom he was in an on-and-off relationship for 13 years and who, in November, was the first to sue of the five plaintiffs to sue the rapper, although she withdrew the lawsuit just 36 hours later.

The images, distributed exclusively by CNN, are graphic, to the extent that the network has issued a viewer discretion warning on the footage. The video was recorded at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles, on March 5, 2016. It was captured by different cameras and in it, Ventura is seen leaving a hotel room barefoot, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and carrying her purse and a travel bag. She walks quickly down the hallway and turns into another area. Combs is then seen leaving the room, covered only with a white towel clutched around his waist, running after her. He finds her by the elevators and starts attacking her. He grabs her by the neck, throws her to the floor and kicks her several times. The musician then grabs the hood of his sweatshirt and drags her down the hallway. After knocking her to the floor, he takes her belongings, and then continues dragging her again. In other images he is seen sitting on a chair, throwing objects at her, though she is longer visible on camera.

The footage fits with what Ventura described in the lawsuit she filed against Combs on November 17, 2023. According to CNN, she has declined to comment on the video, as have Combs and the hotel chain. Ventura’s attorney, Douglas H. Wigdor, is among the few who have spoken out on the matter: “The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behavior of Mr. Combs. Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms. Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”

The lawsuit filed by the former singer and model, who dated Combs on and off between 2005 and 2018, laid out exactly the facts now seen in the video recordings. Ventura recounted that Combs often forced her to take drugs and beat her, both at their homes and in hotels, that she was sometimes in bed for days because of injuries and bruises, and that he locked her up and prevented her from seeing her friends or family. Ventura recounts this episode and how while she was trying to escape Combs woke up and threw glass vases at her in the corridors. She explained that there was no record of the incident because the musician had paid $50,000 for the security camera footage.

Ventura filed the lawsuit, in which she described in detail the attacks she had been subjected to by Combs over the years, in mid-November 2023, but decided to withdraw it just a day later, suggesting that the two had reached an out-of-court settlement. However, it was only the beginning. A few days later another woman named Joi Dickerson-Neal accused Combs of raping her in 1991, when she was a 19-year-old student, and of recording a video of the assault. A third woman, Liza Gardner, said that in collusion with another singer named Aaron Hall, in 1990, Combs sexually abused her and a friend. In addition, in February, a producer named Rodney Jones Jr., a regular collaborator on Combs’ music, accused him of non-consensual touching, of walking naked in front of him, and of pressuring him with violence and money.

But what may be the most serious allegation against Combs came in early December when a woman, who has not given her name but has provided photographs and videos, claimed that the musician raped her in 2003, when she was 17, along with other men. The young woman, now 38, explained in the 14 pages of her lawsuit how she met the president of Combs’ record label, Harve Pierre, at a bar in Detroit and how shortly thereafter they both called the rapper on the phone, when he said he would love to meet her. Pierre then forced her to smoke crack and molested her in a bathroom, forcing her to perform oral sex on him. He then flew her on his private plane to New York, where she met Combs at his recording studio and was forced to consume more drugs and alcohol. Pierre, Combs (then 34) and another man took turns raping her in a bathroom at the studio after she was too inebriated to consent, according to the suit. The next morning, they sent her back to Michigan on a plane.

This allegation, if proven, would constitute sex trafficking, since the minor was taken from one state to another for nonconsensual sexual acts. These accusations led to a federal investigation, which came to light at the end of March, when the police searched Combs’ home in Los Angeles and some of his airplanes. The details of that investigation remain out of the public domain.

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