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- [00:00]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [01:09]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts hello and welcome back to Diddy on Trial from BBC Sounds with me Anushka Matanda Doughty. Make sure you subscribe and turn on your push notifications so you never miss a thing. Now, it's only day two of the trial, but today is massive Victim one, who has now been officially named as Diddy's former romantic partner, Cassie Ventura, takes the stand as the prosecution's main witness. Just a warning. This episode contains descriptions of violence, sexual violence and graphic descriptions of sex. Now reminder, Sean Diddy Combs is accused of sex trafficking, transportation for prostitution and racketeering with conspiracy. He denies all the charges and says he's never sexually assaulted anyone, man or woman, adult or minor. If found guilty, he could end up spending the rest of his life behind bars. I'm stood outside the federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan, New York. And today inside that courtroom, R and B singer Cassie Ventura is giving her much anticipated testimony. It is extremely busy here, busier than it was yesterday. We've got press from every major media organization here and we're all penned in in these little cages that the police have put up. Some people are here to support Diddy. Some people are playing his music, some people are outside playing Cassie's music. We've got podcasters and tiktokers who are recording all the time throughout the day. And sometimes when people think the family's coming out or they can get a glimpse of lawyers, people just start running down the street with their phones, with their cameras, everybody trying to get a slice of the action. Yesterday, some of Diddy's children left the testimony at lunchtime and the press just swarmed to them. They were getting into a black suv. Everybody was clambering, trying to get a shot of them, trying to ask them questions. Now, we told you yesterday, late in the afternoon, we had some extremely graphic details about Diddy's sex life with Cassie from a male escort. Today, Cassie's inside that courtroom telling her own story. Cassie dated Sean Diddy Combs for more than a decade. They were one of Hollywood's most recognizable power couples. But in November 2023, Cassie dropped a bombshell civil lawsuit alleging a decade of abuse. She alleged that Sean Diddy Combs raped, sexually assaulted her and forced her to engage in sex acts with commercial male sex workers. The lawsuit was settled a day after it was filed for an undisclosed amount. To be clear, this was a serious civil lawsuit. So it was concerned with monetary compensation. This federal trial that we're at today is about Diddy's freedom. And Cassie is the prosecution's main witness for any jurors who weren't aware of Cassie before the trial. Yesterday, they were shown CCTV footage taken from the hallway of a Hotel in 2016 where Diddy assaults Cassie. Now, I'm about to go into the courtroom with my producer. There's no tech allowed, no phones, no recorders. You just get a notepad and a pen. As soon as we come out, we'll update you on what Cassie had to say. It's 5pm we're stood outside the court after a very intense testimony from Cassie which is going to carry on into tomorrow. I'm here with Sakshi Vengatraman, the digital reporter in New York for the BBC. Sakshi, can you first fill us in on what happened this morning with the cross examination of the male escort, Daniel Phillip?
- [04:17]
Sakshi Vengatraman
Yes, the day started with a cross examination of Daniel Phillip, who is the male escort who would rendezvous with Cassie and Diddy for these freak offs in New York City on the Upper west side often. So what we heard today from the defense was kind of just like a poking of holes in his story that there was coercion and abuse involved in Diddy's freak offs with Cassie and that she was uncomfortable or she was being beaten and forced to continue. There was a lot of the defense implying that he was in love with Cassie or he was jealous when Cassie went off into the other room with Diddy, which he contested by saying that it was absolutely, absolutely not true. The defense also tried to poke holes in an incident he described when he was at a Freak off. And Cassie was being beaten in the other room. He could hear sounds of slapping and her crying. And then she came out and Diddy forced her to continue is what he said. The defense brought up an earlier report that he gave to prosecutors where he said something different, where he said that she was beaten and came out and then Diddy did not force her to continue and told him to get out. He said he didn't recall saying that to police. So we're kind of hearing two different versions of this story that he's telling. And I'm sure that Cassie will be asked about this incident with her testimony as it continues.
- [05:30]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
Cassie Venturi, we heard from her for the first time today. It was intense. She was emotional at times. Cassie turned up wearing brown cotton dress where you could see that she was pregnant. And she sat down and she began.
- [05:43]
Sakshi Vengatraman
So there was actually debate between the defense and the prosecution about whether or not Cassie should walk through the courtroom or whether she should be seated already before the jury came in. The reason that they gave the judge in his private quarters the day before is that if Cassie walks in with her huge pregnant belly, you know, obviously there's naturally going to be sympathy for her. And the defense didn't want that. The judge totally overruled that and said, yes, she can walk in. And she did walk in, heavily pregnant, like you said, in her tight brown outfit that showed off her stomach. And she took the stand. The testimony began with really her setting the scene of what her relationship with Diddy looked like from the time that she was 19 and coming out of modeling and trying to make it in the music industry. Meeting Diddy and then kind of having this whirlwind relationship with him. Their early trips to Miami that kind of solidified them as a couple, but still in secret. And how within the first year, their relationship that really kind of spiraled into something that she didn't have planned for herself, like four freak offs and things like that.
- [06:43]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
It was a long testimony. It's going to go on into tomorrow. And the biggest theme was during this relationship, which we know lasted over a decade, I did things that I didn't want to do. And she offered kind of three different explanations for why that was. One of them was fear. And she spoke about physical aggression. Now, she said the first time that she experienced physical aggression was before the freak offs. Can you just fill in a little bit of the picture she painted about the goings on between her and Diddy?
- [07:09]
Sakshi Vengatraman
Yeah, I mean, so she says that physical assault from Diddy was something that Was always on the back of her mind if she was thinking about saying no to something, like saying no to a freak off or upsetting him in any way, she was afraid that he would hurt her. One quote that she said that really stuck out in my mind was if I made the wrong face, I would end up getting hit in the face. So even small things that she did wrong would be met by anger and violence from Didion. I mean, if we remember yesterday in their opening statements, the defense already kind of led with admitting that Diddy is a violent person. He did get drunk and get high and get violent towards his girlfriends. But the defense is also asserting that that's not what this case is about. It's about racketeering and sex trafficking, which they still hold strong that he didn't do, even though they are admitting that if this was a domestic violence trial, like, it would be a different story.
- [07:56]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
She also speaks about free coughs in great detail. And we're calling them free coughs. I know some people have had questions about that because that is what the federal government are calling them. And it's a term that we've heard was originated by Diddy. Now she speaks about the first time she was introduced to what that meant and him kind of, this is what I'm into. What did she say about that?
- [08:13]
Sakshi Vengatraman
Yeah, so she says that Diddy, within the first year of their relationship, approached her with this idea called voyeurism, which was that he wanted her to have sex with somebody else while he watched. And he just said that that's what he was into and that that's what would please him. And she was disgusted, internally confused. She said that her stomach dropped to her butt. She had never heard of something like that and she didn't want to do it. But ultimately she acquiesced because she felt like that's what she needed to do to make him happy. And at that point, she loved him and wanted to make him happy. So she did it and participated in the first freak off.
- [08:46]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
She spoke about that a lot like loving him, wanting to make him happy, and not wanting him to feel judged about his sexual proclivities, particularly in relation to the freak offs. But she does speak about how it turned from what some might call a threesome or voyeurism into more like an occupation. Can you just fill me in what she said with that?
- [09:06]
Sakshi Vengatraman
Yeah, she said that eventually these freak offs became a full time job. She said that they would last anywhere from 36 hours to four days and they would happen every single week. So you can only imagine how much of her time these freak offs must have been taking. She had a budding music career at the time. She was releasing a lot of hits. And she said that her career was stifled because of how much she was doing the freak offs and then after them, kind of recovering from them. Obviously if she was on several different drugs, she would have to come down from the drugs and take a few days to feel normal again and rehydrate is what she said. So, yeah, she said that it really impeded the activities in her life and it was just part of Diddy's way of controlling hers, how she painted it.
- [09:47]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
And she did speak about control a lot. And she spoke about the overarching control that she alleges he had over her life. And it kind of started with comments on her aesthetic appearance into how she was acting. They did speak, speak about it, how it extended into kind of body piercings and then the conversations around breast augmentation expressing like differences he wanted, in her opinion. And she said, like, it really started to take its toll on her. The prosecution asked her the question, which I imagine the defense are going to ask as well, and lots of people on social media have been voicing for months, why did you keep doing stuff if you didn't want to do it? And this related specifically to the freak offs. What did she say about why she went through with these things, particularly the freak offs? Like you said, days long, drug fueled orgies, why did she keep doing them?
- [10:31]
Sakshi Vengatraman
Yeah, I mean, I think she gave a few reasons. So the first of which, like we mentioned, was fear of physical aggression. She thought if she said no, she could potentially be beaten. Another reason that she gave was love. She loved him. She was in a relationship with him for it ended up being over a decade. And there was a part of her that did want to please him. And when she was asked, you know, why do you do these freak offs? And is there anything that you liked about the freak offs? The answer that she gave was, I liked the time spent with him. I liked when the freak offs were done and we just got to go into the room and be together. Which is something she says they never really got to do because both of them had such public lives. Especially Diddy was surrounded by a huge team. She felt she never really got to be alone with him. And this was the only time he had a massive influence over her career. You'll remember she was signed to Bad Boy Records, which was Diddy's record label. So not only did he have control over her life, but he had control over her career and the direction that it went. There was also the blackmail that she mentioned. After a few of the freak offs happened, Diddy started recording them. She expressed in court today that she didn't want them to be recorded, but he recorded them anyway. She said she asked him to delete them several times, but he didn't delete them. And he did threaten to release them and show them to people if she declined to participate in the freak off. So that was another concern for her that she mentioned.
- [11:47]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
Yeah, so she gave those like three reasons for why she continued to do stuff she was uncomfortable with. And the prosecution didn't stop there. I mean, they did really ask her to go into detail about the kind of stuff she was doing that she felt uncomfortable with. And it's a, you know, it's a tricky listen and I'll do another warning here. It's quite graphic if you're listening. Sexually explicit. She does detail stuff that happened during those sexual performances, those freak offs that she didn't enjoy at all. What kind of stuff did she talk about?
- [12:15]
Sakshi Vengatraman
Yeah, I think the first thing is drugs. She said that she consumed several kinds of drugs, including ecstasy, mdma, cocaine, marijuana, ketamine, mushrooms, GHV alone are in combination with one another. She said those drugs would often make her sick and she would even throw up before the freak offs. And despite her throwing up and Diddy seeing her throw up and being aware that she was sick still made her continue the very fact that she was having sex with strangers. She didn't want to do that from the beginning. Sometimes Diddy would make her have multiple partners who were having sex with her at the same time. Sometimes Diddy would have sex with her at the same time as an escort. She said all of that made her extremely uncomfortable and she didn't want to do any of that. She said, you know, she was also forced to perform freak offs when she wasn't feeling her best, when she was on her period, for example. And she described, you know, covering furniture with linens to try to avoid soiling them as much as possible. And at the end of a freak off, they would be covered in all number of bodily fluids. She also said that Diddy and another escort would urinate on her. She said Diddy directed this. She even said at one point very graphically that, you know, she would choke often because a lot of it got in her mouth. She said she put her hands up, she was on the floor. She, you know, didn't want this to happen. So some very Graphic stuff. And she, you know, got visibly upset several times today in court. You know, she was tearing up from the beginning. And when she got into the really gritty stuff, she did begin to cry. She even asked for a 10 minute break at some point just to go and take a breather. So you could tell that this stuff was not easy for her to talk about.
- [13:57]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
But she also talked about an element which we heard in the federal indictment and we've heard before about how highly produced and orchestrated these freak offs were. And she spoke about Diddy's role in all of that.
- [14:08]
Sakshi Vengatraman
Yeah. So Diddy controlled everything about these freak offs, according to Cassie. She says that he decided who the escorts would be. He would approve the escorts before she contacted them. He would pick the locations, he would set the lighting, even placing candles and moving them around during the course of the freak offs. And he would determine what sexual acts she did with the escort. He would tell her what to do and then telling him, you know, where to ejaculate. Very, you know, graphic testimony from Cassie. And I think being in the overflow room when she was talking about it, there were gasps when she said that.
- [14:42]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
Now, something else that came up that we've heard a lot about before is the baby oil aspect. You know, the defense addressed this in their opening statement saying, you've probably heard of his love of baby oil. You know, that's not a federal crime. But in this side of the story, the story we heard from Cassie, we started to hear how that baby oil was being used and how it was in an environment that made her feel very uncomfortable.
- [15:03]
Sakshi Vengatraman
Yeah. So I think the importance of the baby oil, and today it's something that the prosecution was asking her over and over about how many bottles of baby oil did you use? Which shockingly, she said that they would go through sometimes over 10 bottles of baby oil during one freak off. They would have to have more baby oil brought in. And I think the element that the prosecution is getting at here is the racketeering element. The baby oil is being used to portray this whole operation that Diddy had around him and, you know, assistants and chiefs of staff and things like that, bringing in stuff to the freak offs, whether it was drugs that assistants would bring in or, you know, lubricant or baby oil, which is something that was very heavily talked about. Cassie also said that she was just doused in baby oil. She would be forced to have it rubbed all over her. Rubbed all over the escort. She said by the end of the freak offs, the rooms were often covered in Baby oil. The linens were completely soiled, the furniture was messed up and that Diddy would get these really high bills from the hotel about replacing the furniture and things like that because just about how much of a mess they made.
- [16:03]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
Some of the stuff that the prosecution said in opening statements get picked up on today by Cassie and she was emotional at some point, but it's not over. She hasn't finished giving her testimony. What's kind of the schedule looking like for tomorrow?
- [16:14]
Sakshi Vengatraman
Yeah, so it looks like Cassie is going to be on the schedule all day tomorrow and then probably the majority of the day on Thursday. Prosecutors did say that their questioning of Cassie is going to take at least until midday tomorrow. The defense responded by saying in that case, their cross questioning is going to take until probably well into Thursday. So we'll see how long that goes. Another big question that I had at the beginning of the day that was kind of just answered as we were leaving court is will the public get to see the videos and images of the freak offs, which is something that has been discussed since the trial started yesterday. It's looking like the answer is no. Originally, you know, these documents were submitted as evidence and they were going to be shown to everyone. But the judge ruled because of the potential for this content which both the defense and the prosecution called pornographic in nature, very explicit content, just showing sex. Basically. The judge said those videos and photos will provisionally not be shown. It still remains to be seen once the judge reviews the evidence if that changes. But it's looking like we're not going to see the freak offs in court.
- [17:17]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
But we definitely know that the jury will be seeing those tapes that are pornographic in nature and taking it into consideration when they decide whether he's guilty or not. Sakshi, thank you so much for coming and filling us in today. I know it won't be the last time.
- [17:28]
Sakshi Vengatraman
Thank you so much for having me. I'm sure I'll see you again soon.
- [17:32]
Anushka Matanda Doughty
That's it for this episode of Diddy on Trial from BBC Sounds. With me, Anushka Mutanda Doughty. Make sure you subscribe and turn on your push notifications so you never miss a thing. There was terror that it could tear the house down.
- [17:49]
Ryan Seacrest
On BBC Sounds. This is Sports Strangest crimes.
- [17:54]
Sakshi Vengatraman
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Anushka Matanda Doughty
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- [18:04]
Ryan Seacrest
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Anushka Matanda Doughty
It before or since in terms of what it actually meant for the sport.
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Ryan Seacrest
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- [18:19]
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- [18:49]
Ryan Seacrest
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