Takeaways from Cassie Ventura’s 2nd day of testimony in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial

By Lauren del Valle, Nicki Brown, Eric Levenson, Kara Scannell, CNN

(CNN) — After being in the hot seat for about nine hours over two days, Cassie Ventura is done with direct questioning from prosecutors.

Next comes the cross-examination from Sean “Diddy” Combs’ defense team.

Building on her testimony a day earlier, on Wednesday the pregnant 38-year-old pop singer described in disturbing detail what happened after her 2016 assault in a Los Angeles hotel, offered visual proof of other alleged assaults, acknowledged she settled a civil lawsuit for $20 million and explained to the jury why she decided to speak out.

“I can’t carry this anymore,” she said. “I can’t carry the shame, the guilt, the way we – the way I was guided to treat people like they were disposable. What’s right is right, what’s wrong is wrong. I’m here to do the right thing.”

Ventura is the prosecution’s star witness and her testimony is key to the charges against the hip-hop mogul. Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted, he could face a sentence of up to life in prison.

Prosecutors have said Combs and his inner circle used threats, violence, drugs, bribery, arson, kidnapping and lies to coerce Ventura and another woman into participating in drug-fueled sexual parties known as “Freak Offs” and to protect the music mogul’s reputation.

The defense acknowledged Combs has been violent with former girlfriends and has a “different” sex life. However, they said the women consented to these sexual arrangements and noted he was charged with racketeering and sex trafficking, not domestic violence.

Here are the key takeaways from Wednesday’s testimony.

Ventura talked to police after 2016 hotel assault

The central evidence in the case has been the surveillance video of Combs beating Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel in March 2016, and on Wednesday, Ventura provided further details on what happened in the immediate aftermath.

She left the hotel and took an Uber home while Combs sent her a series of text messages, saying “call me,” “I got 6 kids” and claiming that he was being arrested, according to text messages read aloud in court.

“I have a black eye and a fat lip. You are sick for thinking it’s okay to do what you’ve done please stay far away from me,” she wrote in one message.

“If you don’t pick up you will never hear my voice again,” he wrote.

Ventura’s friend called the police, and Ventura spoke with them, but she “wasn’t ready” to name Combs, she testified.

“Just in that moment I didn’t want to hurt him that way. It was just too much going on,” she said.

Video of the assault was first published by CNN last year. The jury has watched surveillance video of the assault at least six times so far.

Ventura details her injuries, with photos and a scar

Ventura said she suffered wounds and other medical issues from the “Freak Offs” and from Combs’ assaults, and the jury saw some of them in real-time photos and an eyebrow scar.

The jury was shown two selfie photos of Ventura that she said were taken on the Uber ride home from the hotel in March 2016. She had a “fat lip” and was wearing sunglasses “because I had a black eye underneath,” she testified.

The hotel assault came just before Ventura was set to attend the movie premiere for her film “The Perfect Match.” Prosecutors showed the jury a photo of Ventura dressed in a gown and wearing large black sunglasses she said were to hide her black eye, and they showed a photo of Ventura and Combs at the premiere in which some of her injuries were still visible.

“I had bruises on my body that weren’t completely covered by the makeup,” Ventura testified. “I had quite a bit of makeup on my face.”

In addition, Ventura showed the jury a scar on her eyebrow that she said came after Combs threw her down onto the corner of a bed in 2013. Ventura sent an image of the injury to Combs that day with the text, “So you can remember.”

The jury also saw photos of injuries Ventura sustained from an altercation in December 2011 and photos of her with a black eye mostly concealed by sunglasses in Jamaica in 2013 or 2014.

The “Freak Offs” – and the drugs she took to endure them – caused her gastrointestinal problems, mouth sores and frequent urinary tract infections, she testified. She became “heavily dependent on opiates” during the relationship and eventually went to rehab, she testified.

In 2023, she was having horrible flashbacks and became suicidal, she testified. She tried to walk into traffic, but her husband stopped her, she testified as she broke down into tears.

Lawsuit was settled for $20 million

On November 16, 2023, Ventura filed a bombshell lawsuit against Combs alleging he assaulted, raped and sex trafficked her. Combs denied wrongdoing, and the two settled the lawsuit a day later, but her lawsuit set off a series of other civil suits against Combs alleging wrongdoing.

In court Wednesday, she said the settlement was for $20 million.

Earlier that year, Ventura had written a book about her experience with Combs, sent it to the rapper through a lawyer and told him that he could buy the rights to it for $30 million.

“I wanted to be compensated for the time, the pain, the many, many years of having to fix my life,” she said.

The eight-figure dollar amount is likely to be key to the defense’s attempt to question Ventura’s motives. In opening statements, defense attorney Teny Geragos noted some of the accusers “went to a civil lawyer for a money grab” instead of going to law enforcement.

Ventura says she sometimes fought back

While Ventura did not fight back against Combs during the 2016 hotel assault, she testified there were other times when she did so, particularly in the beginning of their relationship.

“I learned that it could escalate the fight more and make it worse for myself,” she said.

Fighting back would “make him more violent, make him stronger, make him want to push me harder in that situation,” Ventura said.

She testified that there were times when she initiated physical fights with Combs, but she never saw any injuries on him afterwards.

After a party at a club in Los Angeles, Combs called her “a slut or b*tch” when they got in the car, and she drunkenly punched him in the face, she said. Combs then beat her and stomped on her face as she lay on the floor of the vehicle, Ventura testified. She tried to run away, but Combs’ security caught up with her and brought her into the house, she testified.

“(I) just didn’t look like myself at all, just knots and bleeding, swollen everything. I looked horrible,” she said.

Combs told her she had to “sneak out of the house” and go with security to stay at a hotel, she said. She snuck into the hotel “covered up, because no one could see me like that,” and stayed there for a week, she added.

Ventura testified that she didn’t think it was “safe” for her to try to leave.

“I understood Sean’s capabilities, his access to guns, and the threats that he made prior to that,” she said.

‘Freak Off’ videos were used as blackmail, Ventura says

Combs took videos of the “Freak Offs” and used those as blackmail to threaten and coerce Ventura, according to her testimony.

In one instance, they had an argument at the Cannes Film Festival, and on the flight home he played videos of “Freak Offs” that she thought had been deleted, she testified. Combs told her “that he was going to embarrass me and release them,” Ventura said, a threat he allegedly made frequently.

When they landed back in New York, they went to dinner and then had a “Freak Off” at his request, she testified.

“Whatever was going to make him not be angry at me and threatening me, I was willing to do. I just didn’t want to feel scared anymore,” she testified. “And it was the one thing he made me feel like I was good at.”

Jury views ‘Freak Off’ photos

Prosecutors showed sexually explicit still images of the “Freak Offs” to Ventura and to the jury, but not to the media and public.

One female juror let out a deep breath and rested her hand on her chest as an image was placed on the monitor before her. A male juror looked at the screen at one of the images and his eyes appeared to move away quickly. A different male juror wrote on his notepad.

Prosecutors provided binders with more than half a dozen images from the “Freak Off” videos to the judge and Combs’ lawyer. The photos were not put on monitors at the lawyer’s tables to avoid anyone else from seeing them. When one of the images of an escort was referenced, Combs leaned across one of his lawyers to get a better look at the images in the binder.

Judge Arun Subramanian earlier denied a media request to have the sexually explicit videos and images shown in court, saying they had the potential to re-victimize the people in them.

Ventura accuses Combs of rape

In August 2018, Ventura went to dinner with Combs in Malibu for what she thought was a “closure conversation,” as she was dating her now-husband at the time, she testified.

Combs was playful and romantic at the dinner, she recalled, and then he drove her home.

On the witness stand, Ventura paused for a long time before speaking next: “And then he raped me in my living room,” she said.

“I just remember crying and saying ‘no’ but it was very fast,” she testified.

Combs shook his head no and pushed his chair back from the defense table.

She was intimate with Combs voluntarily one other time after that, she said. She and Combs have had “a few check-ins” since they ended things in 2018, but “nothing crazy,” she said.

Relationship with Kid Cudi prompted threats, Ventura says

Combs lunged at Ventura with a wine opener between his fingers during a “Freak Off” in December 2011 when he learned she was dating Scott Mescudi, also known as rapper Kid Cudi, she testified.

She managed to escape the hotel room at the time, but when she addressed it with Combs later at his house, he assaulted her again and threatened to hurt her and Kid Cudi, Ventura testified.

“He told me about videos that he had that he was going to release, and that he was going to hurt Scott and I,” she said, adding that the videos he was referring to were of the “Freak Offs.”

Ventura said she broke up with Kid Cudi soon after to keep them safe.

Combs also told Ventura that Kid Cudi’s car would be blown up in his driveway before it happened. Sometime after the rapper’s car blew up, Combs, Ventura and Kid Cudi had a meeting at the Soho House about their relationship.

When Kid Cudi asked about his vehicle, Ventura testified, Combs responded, “What vehicle?” The meeting promptly ended after that.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Kid Cudi for comment Wednesday.

Ventura says she struggled to tell her mom about abuse

Ventura offered gut-wrenching explanations of why she was unable to tell the truth about her abuse to her mother for so long.

After one assault, she said her mother read a description of an alleged assault online that didn’t include her name and reached out to see if it was about her.

“I didn’t tell my mom the truth because I was ashamed, but I also felt like at that point I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she testified. “I didn’t want to put my mother in danger of knowing anything of that magnitude.”

In December 2011, after another assault, she told her mother this was the first time Combs had physically abused her, and she didn’t say anything about the “Freak Offs,” she testified.

“I couldn’t hurt her like that. I just wasn’t there with it, I wasn’t ready. And I was also just terrified. It’s not normal,” Ventura said.

What wasn’t normal, Assistant US Attorney Emily Johnson asked.

“To constantly be bruised up by a person you love who says they love you,” Ventura said. “You can’t justify it to anyone. Especially not your mom.”

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CNN’s Nicole Chavez contributed to this report.