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Sean Combs’ ex-girlfriend said she was in a state of shock after reading the bombshell sexual assault lawsuit that Casandra “Cassie” Ventura filed against the mogul in November 2023. “I almost fainted, in fact I think I did,” the woman told a New York jury Monday. “I just reacted like, ‘I can’t believe I’m reading my own story.’”
The witness, using the pseudonym “Jane,” returned to the stand for her third day of testimony, clutching a light blue stress ball. Jane dated Combs between 2021 and 2024 and has said their relationship began as a whirlwind romance; but after she consented to her first freak-off a few months into their relationship, she likened it to opening up “a Pandora’s box” that she was unable to shut.
Reading Ventura’s 35-page civil lawsuit (which was quickly settled) was particularly jarring to Jane, she said, because just a few weeks before the complaint was filed, Jane had tried to confront Combs about the freak-offs and express her desire to stop. Earlier in the day, she read a series of texts she sent Combs between Oct. 15 and Oct. 25, 2023, in which she said that the freak-offs were “desensitizing sex to me” and that she felt “violated” after “three years of having to fuck strangers.”
“I’m not an animal, I’m not a porn star,” Jane said in one message.
Jane said Ventura’s account of the R&B singer’s decade-long relationship with Combs bore a “harrowing resemblance” to how Jane felt about her nights in “dark hotel” rooms. There were three particular pages of Ventura’s lawsuit that Jane said she felt described what she went through. “I was bewildered,” she said. “I was in shock … I just couldn’t sleep. I was reading these pages, It felt like a nightmare.”
What Jane knew as “hotel nights” were strikingly similar to the freak-offs that Ventura said she was forced into throughout her decade-long relationship with Combs. The nights would typically follow the same routine, both women said. Music pulsed in the background of the hotel suite, which was decorated with white candles and mood lighting. Sheets and towels covered the furniture in preparation for the numerous bottles of baby oil the trio would go through.
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Combs allegedly expected the women to take ecstasy, dress in provocative lingerie, and wear towering stripper heels as they seduced a male sex worker by pouring baby oil over their bodies until they glistened. Combs would allegedly give instructions to the women on when they should advance to the next phase of the highly choreographed sexual encounter.
Jane contacted Combs three days after the lawsuit went public, texting him that reading Ventura’s lawsuit was like reading her own “sexual trauma.” She also told Combs that she felt like he had sexually exploited her, adding “You knew this was coming and gaslight me and made me feel crazy.”
In a recorded call from later that day, which appeared to come from Combs’ chief of staff Kristina Khorram’s seized devices, Combs attempts to soothe and console a sobbing Jane. However, his tone quickly shifts when Jane pushes back on the idea that the two were both were just having “kinky fun” together.
“That’s not how I saw things,” Jane firmly responds, prompting Combs to raise his voice and accuse Jane of recording him.
After Ventura’s lawsuit was filed and settled, Jane said she went three months without seeing Combs, but the pair did communicate frequently via text and voice notes over the next month. In some of these messages, which were shared with the jury, Jane expressed her anger and frustration with Combs. In one text from Dec. 7, 2023 text, she told him, per reports, “Please stop using women for your fetish” and “leave women alone who don’t want to do those nights with you. Hire prostitutes and stop emotionally harming women that you love.”
Combs responded, “You trying to set me up. This is crazy, fucking crazy, are you recording on our phone calls.”
Jane denied this and told Combs he would “never understand because you’re so deep in your own lies that you tell yourself.”
In another exchange, Combs reached out to Jane asking if she was dating, per reports. She sent him a voice memo in response, which was not played for the jury, though they did see a text she sent soon after, “I became the side chick and sex worker in my own relationship.”
By the end of the month, Jane testified, she spoke with Combs over FaceTime, and he appeared to offer her compensation to help her move on. Jane said Combs told her things like “charge me for your resentment,” “I just need you to get over this,” and, “I don’t want any lose ends,” per reports. Jane then sent Combs a text containing terms that would see him pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Combs allegedly told her in response that she was an opportunist and a liar. According to Jane, Combs also threatened to leak sex tapes of her to the father of her child. (Other witnesses have also claimed that Combs would threaten to release explicit videos taken during freak-offs as a form of blackmail.)
Jane texted Khorram about this alleged threat, per reports, writing, “He said that he would expose me and send them to my child’s father. He has been bothering me for two months.” Jane testified that Khorram said in response that she would hide the phones that the explicit videos were on.
According to Jane, Khorram also suggested Jane and Combs give each other space: “I always tell him all the time to just give these things space,” Khorram said, according to Jane. “Otherwise we end up in the situation like we’re in now” (Jane said she took this to be a reference to Ventura’s lawsuit).
After several months without contact, Jane and and Combs reconnected in February 2024, and got back together soon after. Jane testified, per reports, that she agreed to visit Combs in Miami over her birthday, where they drank and took ecstasy. At some point, Jane said, Combs asked if she wanted to have sex with one of escorts that frequently partook in hotel nights, and Jane agreed.
Asked why she agreed, Jane responded, per reports, “At this point, I’m just so used to this being the outcome of whatever we’re doing that I just accept it.”
Jane said there were more hotel nights after that. But Jane also testified that by early March Combs wrote he that he thought it was time for them to break-up “peacefully.” Combs texted her, per reports, “I would appreciate it if you could sign something for me so I could have closure comfortably.” Jane agreed.
Near the end of March 2024, however, Homeland Security investigators raided Combs’ homes in California and Los Angeles. Jane testified, per reports, that authorities also left a business card at her home that day, but she did not speak to anyone in Homeland Security.
Rather, Jane said, she called Combs and his security guard. At some point, Combs hired a lawyer for Jane, and Jane confirmed, per reports, that Combs continues to pay for the lawyer representing her now.
Not long after the raids, Jane testified that another escort she frequently had sex with during hotel nights, Sly, threatened to release a sex tape he had of them. According to Jane, per reports, Sly said he had a 35-minute video of one of their encounters, because Combs had allegedly used Sly’s phone to record it instead of his own.
“My heart was beating out of my chest and I couldn’t believe what he was saying to me,” Jane testified, per reports, after Sly allegedly demanded $10,000 for the tape.
Jane went on to say she contacted Combs, who got his lawyers involved. While Jane tried to push back against Sly’s threats, she said she eventually received a call from an unnamed media company saying they’d bought the tape and asking her for comment.
“I fainted and I called my lawyer,” Jane said. (The tape was never released and Jane said that she hasn’t spoken with Sly since.)
As her testimony continued, Jane revealed that she was with Combs the day in May that CNN broadcast the video of him assaulting Ventura in the InterContinental Hotel. While Jane said, per reports, that Combs primarily huddled with family and friends in the aftermath, she recalled a conversation they had about the tape a few months later.
Jane testified, per reports, that Combs told her “that was the only time [he and Ventura] had physical violence like that.” She also said Combs told her that Ventura “was a hitter and that she would hit.” (Ventura, during her own testimony, mentioned numerous occasions during which Combs allegedly assaulted her.)
Not long after that, Jane testified, she allegedly had a violent confrontation of her own with Combs. On June 18, 2024 — “a very terrible day,” Jane said — Combs came to her house in Los Angeles for a date night. Prior to that, Combs had been in Utah on a family trip, though Jane confronted him that night over who was actually there with him. She said she made “an assumption that he was with another woman,” and admitted to calling Combs a “pedophile” because she thought the woman he was with was about 25 years younger than Combs (though she was over 18).
They began to argue and at one point, Jane said, per reports, she pushed Combs’ head into a marble kitchen counter, though she did not see any marks or injuries. Jane also said she began throwing candles around the house and at Combs, while telling Combs she hated him. “I think he was probably cursing and calling me crazy,” Jane testified, per reports.
As the fight escalated, Jane said she locked herself in her bedroom. She testified that Combs kicked the door off its hinges, prompting her to run into a closet, where she said she changed out of a dress and into clothes she could run in. When Combs allegedly broke into the closet, Jane said she made a break for the front door, but Combs stopped her.
“Sean kicked me in the back of my thigh, and I fell down,” Jane testified, per reports. “Then he picked me up in a chokehold and choked me.”
Jane said she fled from the house and hid nearby for about two hours. Eventually, she made her way back to the house, assuming Combs would be gone, only to find him waiting for her on the street. “I was scared, but I was quiet and I just kept walking back to the house because I didn’t want to wake up the neighbors,” Jane said, per reports.
Back in the house, Jane said, she and Combs exchanged blows. “I punched him and then he punched me,” she said, per reports. Jane testified that she did not see any injuries on Combs after hitting him in the temple. She alleged that Combs punched her twice in the head, “on my forehead and around my eye area.”
Jane said she ran into the backyard and fell “into a ball” on the ground, covering her head. “He started punching my head. He started kicking me. He started saying all kinds of things and just kept punching me,” Jane testified, per reports.
After that Combs allegedly told Jane to put on makeup and push her hair to the side to cover any injuries because he was inviting over an escort named. Jane testified, per reports, that Combs told her, “We’re not gonna end the night like this.”
Jane said that, after Antoine arrived, Combs insisted she take an ecstasy pill, again claiming that Combs told her she wasn’t going to ruin his night. When Combs offered her the pill, Jane testified that she told him, per reports, “I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to.”
Combs allegedly responded, “Is this coercion?”
Jane said that she took the pill. She said, per reports, that she performed oral sex on the escort for what “felt like forever” and then had sex with him. “Sean was watching, I just felt disgusted, I felt terrible,” Jane said, per reports.
Jane has been referred to as Victim-2 in the Southern District of New York’s sex trafficking and racketeering case against the hip-hop mogul. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the five felony counts against him.
Earlier on Monday, Jane spoke about one of her attempts to put a pause on these highly choreographed sexual encounters with male escorts that could last upwards of two days straight. One of the October 2023 text exchanges discussed in court was prompted by a photo Jane saw of Combs on social media with one of his ex-girlfriends.
Jane said she was “furious” and texted Combs to arrange the encounter with his ex. Combs replied that Jane was “the only thing that’s going to put me at peace,” to which Jane said, “It’s not me, it’s the entertainment that puts you at peace.”
During the text conversation, Jane told Combs, “I don’t feel like performing loveless, cold sex.” She later said, “I need a break. I don’t want to do anything, I’ve hit a wall.” And, “It’s been three years of having to fuck strangers.”
Combs, in turn, promised Jane that they could spend a day together with “no strangers,” and that they didn’t have to have sex. But Jane was skeptical, texting him, “You beat the love out of us. You made it crystal clear exactly what you want me for. You’re going to spend the day … lovebombing me so you can get what you want? It’s not genuine. I’ve hit a mental and spiritual wall.”
Jane then told the court, “Whenever he wanted me or one of these nights, the lovebombing or persistency would start.”
In another set of texts Jane sent Combs that October, she told him, “You placed and paid all of these harmful men on me and risked my health. This was never love, I regret everything and all this dark toxic shit that entered my life.”
Jane went on to say that Combs then tried to calm her down over a phone call. She texted him afterward that she was “processing some sort of trauma and just need some healing time to get back to myself,” while adding, “I feel as your lover, I wanted to please you and destress you and I pushed through and went along with things even when deep down I wanted the night to be over.”
Jane also acknowledged in a text that she was “consenting like I say on tape.” That was in reference to her phone call with Combs, during which he allegedly told her, “If anyone were to watch these tapes, they would’ve thought you were having the best time; they look like you were consenting.”
Asked by prosecutor Maurene Comey if this was true, Jane paused, and finally responded, “I’m still trying to figure that out.”
In discussing her relationship with Combs, Jane said her decision to agree to her first freak-off with Combs led to regular encounters in Miami, Los Angeles, New York, and Turks and Caicos. Although Jane tried telling Combs that she no longer wished to have sex with other men, he would allegedly threaten to break up with her and cut off his financial support. The couple’s relationship only ended when Combs was arrested in September 2024.
“One night of fun turned into the entirety of our relationship, and now it’s all I’m expected to do and get called for,” Jane texted Combs in September 2023. “It’s hurting me because I’m so much more than being loved in the dark in hotel rooms, doing things that make me feel disgusted with myself … I don’t want you to play this role — I don’t want to play this role in your life anymore. It’s dark, sleazy, and makes me feel disgusted with myself. I feel it’s the only reason you have me around and why you pay for the house. I don’t want to feel obligated to perform these nights with you in fear of losing the roof over my head.”
Combs’ response was short. “Girl, stop,” he wrote.
Prosecutors said they consider Jane a victim of sex trafficking by fraud. (Casandra “Cassie” Ventura was allegedly sex trafficked by physical force and coercion.) The single mother said she was desperate for one-on-one time with Combs and claimed that Combs would dangle the carrot of spending quality time together after freak-offs, which would rarely materialize.
Throughout her emotional testimony, Jane discussed the various ways Combs and his staff allegedly coerced or forced her into doing things she was not comfortable with — a dynamic that’s at the heart of the state’s case against Combs. Along with her participation in the hotel nights, this also included, Jane testified, instances where she was asked to fly with drugs for Combs. If she didn’t return Combs’ calls, Jane said she’d receive incessant calls from members of his team.
Prosecutors previously claimed Combs’ manipulation of Jane went beyond financial control into threats and physical violence. They’ve said Combs busted down doors to get to Jane, dragged her by her hair, and kicked her while she was curled up in a ball on the ground. (Ventura previously testified that Combs used threats and physical violence to coerce her into hundreds of freak-offs during their 11-year relationship that ended for good in 2018.)
More than two dozen witnesses already have testified at Combs’ trial, which is now in its fifth week. Prosecutors have called multiple former assistants, alleged male escorts, and even Scott Mescudi, the musician and actor known as Kid Cudi, to support their allegations Combs used his wealth, influence, and inner circle to carry out crimes aimed at fulfilling his sexual desires and protecting his reputation.
From Rolling Stone US
