← The Downfall Of Diddy | The Case Against Sean 'Puffy P Diddy' Combs
The Downfall Of Diddy | The Case Against Sean 'Puffy P Diddy' Combs
Breaking Down Diddy's Dark Life With Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott
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- [00:00]
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Podcast Host
This is continuing coverage of United States vs Sean Diddy Combs from the Hidden Killers podcast and True Crime today.
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Psychology Expert
Cassie Ventura didn't just walk into court and tell a story on day two of the Sean Diddy Combs trial. She walked into court eight and a half months pregnant and peeled back years of psychological manipulation, emotional trauma, and what prosecutors say was a highly organized system of abuse. Her testimony wasn't about salacious headlines. It was about how a young woman once full of promise and talent allegedly became emotionally trapped in a relationship that looked like luxury from the outside, but operated like a cage behind closed doors. Today we're going to dive into that part of the story, the emotional prison, and help make sense of what kind of control happens and why something like this like Cassie might stay in a situation. So many people on the outside would look at it and say, just run. It's not that easy. Siobhan Scott, psychotherapist and author, with us. Siobhan, when Cassie said she stayed not because she wanted to, but because she was afraid of what would happen if she didn't, can you walk us through the emotional psychology behind that type of captivity and what actually keeps someone locked into these relationships even when the abuse is happening in plain sight?
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Siobhan Scott
Yeah, the way I look at Cassie at this point is the poor woman was a slave. I mean, the idea that she experienced any autonomy when she was with him, I mean, she just didn't have any. It was horrifying to kind of peel the layers back and get to the amount of control that this guy had over her. He really, I think, has a sense of himself as a God and he was surrounded by other people who validated that, who took, turned over control to him. And this thing about trauma bonding, it's so confusing. And I think particularly for women when they feel that they're special to someone with power and that there's a sense that they belong to them and they get their self esteem needs from it, but it's not really love. It's all about bonding from fear and trauma.
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Psychology Expert
And this Relationship started at the age of 19. At that point in time, Diddy would have been in his 30s. If I'm doing the math in my head correctly, Obviously he was a powerful older man. He has, at the moment in time of the late 90s, early 2000s, Diddy was at the top of his game. He was one of the biggest recording artists at that moment in time, virtually feeling unstoppable. There was hit after hit after hit coming out of that world. And if you wanted to be somebody, you probably wanted to be with him if you were in the R and B world like she was. So there was a lot to offer there that Sean Combs seemed to bring to the table, but at what cost? People don't often realize what that cost is until they're deep into it.
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Siobhan Scott
Yeah, yeah. I'm sure she had no idea early on that she would be basically controlled in every aspect of her life, particularly her sexual behavior, that she would be dragged into the kind of things that.
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Psychology Expert
She was dragged into and the behavior. And we won't go into the graphic details of it. I mean, it's pretty extreme, pretty heinous of what Sean thought would be fun, or however it was phrased, where he had a fantasy and then told her about it and she did not want to disappoint him. That, to me, is always an interesting thing when you hear about it. I mean, obviously this is a big celebrity thing, but you don't have to be a celebrity to have someone coerce you into something that you otherwise really wouldn't want to do because you want to make the other person happy. Let's talk about that dynamic a little bit and the extremes that people will go to just because they think that, oh, this is the right thing to do. Making that other person happy comes above my own wellbeing and my own self. That. That happens quite often, does it not?
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Siobhan Scott
Yeah. And I think to. To this extreme is rare, but it does happen even in a milder level in relationships when a person has really lost their sense of self, when they've lost their own identity, when they're no longer able to listen to that voice inside that says, hey, I like this, or I don't like this. And that's something that you often see in abusive relationships where there's this kind of coercive control is that loss of sel, which is something that can be gained back, but it's a process, and it can take quite a bit of time.
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Psychology Expert
They were together for many years. I mean, almost a decade. And the easy armchair quarterback Thing that people will say, well, she could have got out of it. She could have left. She wasn't being held hostage. Maybe not in the sense of you're chained to your home or the home that you're sharing with him, but in a lot of ways, you are emotionally, mentally, and, you know, I would argue somewhat on the physical level, too. He had his people, he had his folks out there who would control, who would corral and bring people back to him. And then at the end of the day, he had his leverage that he would say he had above people. Basically, I have these videotapes of all this. You don't want that getting out there. When someone is in a situation like that, what are they thinking at that moment in time? Just like, I'm gonna die here. This is. I mean, she's a young woman. Like, I'm just gonna go through this for the rest of my life and keep enduring. Is it gonna get better? I mean, what typically goes on before someone eventually says, I'm out, and they really mean it and they get the hell out of there?
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Siobhan Scott
Yeah, I think you're right. For many of them, it's like their options in life have become so narrow. They don't see beyond the next day. You know, they're not thinking ahead to 10 years or 20 years or who am I, really? It just becomes this, you know, holding on by your fingernails just to survive from one day to the next day. And usually when there's a shift in that pattern, it's because they've gotten some information from someone else who's given them hope, and there has to be the right person at the right time to present an alternative. Alternative to them.
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Psychology Expert
We learned more about just the extreme use of baby oil in court yesterday or a couple days ago. And it's kind of shocking. I mean, even for Diddy standards. There was one piece of testimony, and I'm just paraphrasing here, where literally filled up like a tub or a small pool with baby oil and then wanted her to get in it. I mean, the excessive use of baby oil to this extreme, sometimes going through, you know, tens and tens and tens of bottles in one sitting, if not more, if you're filling up a tub, I think that would take quite a bit. I mean, what is going on here? I mean, we're talking about excess, but I mean, what. Is there anything with somebody like this, with a ditty where their desires just keep getting more and more extreme, that it's. It turns into a crime, that it turns into such extreme behavior as we're seeing here, and we don't even know what else is going to come out yet.
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Siobhan Scott
Yeah, you know, it just makes me think of this as a very weird sex offender. I mean, I've heard lots of awful stories about different kinds of sex offenders. I've not heard of this baby oil fetish that he seems to have. It's really in the bizarre category. And what we know about people with, you know, paraphilias, these abnormal sexual behaviors, they really become addicted to it. And I would say you're looking at somebody who's. Who's extreme in all areas. The way that he wielded power to hurt other people. I look at him as the dark tetrad, which is, you know, the combination of psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and throw in sadism. Because, you know, just from how we saw him beating her in that hotel lobby video, the hotel video that, you know, was publicized, this. This guy is beyond what we typically see and including in the sexual stuff. It's just so far out of the normal range. It really makes him in a special category of his own.
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Psychology Expert
The defense is arguing that this was all consensual. This is between adults. You know, it's what they liked. You know, it's kind of with the story they're spinning that she, you know, she was an adult, she participated in this willingly. The more extreme we hear about this, how do you think that's gonna land with a jury?
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Siobhan Scott
I can't imagine anybody going for that one at this point. I guess it's the best they can come up with. It's the best they can do. But I can't see it carrying any weight whatsoever.
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Psychology Expert
It's gonna be very, very fascinating. Cassie, eight and a half weeks pregnant as she's going into this, she'll probably have the baby while the trial is actually going on. That was something that was brought up in court by the defense the other day. They wanted her to be seated before the jury came in so there'd be less time for people to look at her being a pregnant woman as that's going to, they believed, have some sort of influence on the jury, maybe providing her more pity, if you will. Obviously, she's not pregnant by Diddy. And these accounts clearly took place. We have video of them. What do you make of that? I mean, when you hear something like that, if we're really concerned about this image or that image of this or that, especially in a case like this, I mean, are they really just. They're going at anything they possibly can to try and lessen the blow to Diddy at this point.
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Siobhan Scott
Yeah. Because, you know, I guess there's the assumption that we're all going to have a sense of compassion and empathy for a woman who's eight and a half months pregnant. And God forbid that we look at her as a human being. Right?
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Psychology Expert
Yeah. Something that Diddy clearly never actually did.
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Siobhan Scott
Yeah.
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Psychology Expert
Let me ask one more thing on this because I found this fascinating. The family of Diddy came into court to support him. A lot of families do. But you got the kids there and they're hearing this testimony of this raucous, insane sexual behavior, drug fueled abuse that he inflicted on Cassie. We heard this from the escort, we've heard this now from Cassie herself. That's gotta be a difficult thing to. To digest. If you're the child of anyone and you're hearing this in court, in any.
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Siobhan Scott
Kind of normal family, it would be horrendously traumatic and disturbing and upsetting and you would think the other relatives would do anything to keep the offspring from hearing all that. But in this case, the fact that, oh well, here they are, they're all in support of him and, and people are just normalizing that, it's another piece of this that just makes it weird and creepy.
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Psychology Expert
I mean, wouldn't you say? Hey, I appreciate the support, but why don't you stay home today?
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Siobhan Scott
Yeah, please, we don't. You don't need to sit through this. That would be the normal response. But there's absolutely nothing normal about this guy or the way he related to his family and to other people.
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Psychology Expert
Couldn't have said it better.
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Podcast Host
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