If you were to collapse the past year of Sean “Diddy” Combs’s life into one image, you might say it’s the scene at his Los Angeles mansion in March, when helicopters and black Suburbans filled with law enforcement raided his home.
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You could argue it’s the onetime billionaire music mogul being arrested in New York by federal agents in September, or the Impressionist-style sketches of him in a Manhattan courtroom last month.
But in all likelihood, you would probably point to the image of Combs storming half-naked down a hotel hallway in leaked 2016 hotel footage, a white towel hastily thrown around his waist, in pursuit of his then-girlfriend, Cassie. Or the one of her in the fetal position, as Combs stands over her landing blow after blow.
It is a haunting, sickening scene. Haunting, too, is this consideration: For all the years Cassie had spent in the spotlight with Combs, we had been looking past her.
That changed on Nov. 16, 2023, when Cassie, under her legal name Casandra Ventura, filed a 35-page lawsuit against Combs alleging years of physical and sexual abuse, coercion and sex trafficking. The claims were startling in their detail, accusing Ventura’s former lover and employer of more than a decade of unchecked cruelty.
Ventura claimed that Combs, at 37, coerced her into a romantic relationship at 19, when he signed her to his label, Bad Boy Records. For more than 10 years, her lawsuit said, Combs would ply her with drugs and force her to participate in sex parties, called “freak offs.” She accused him of isolating her, beating her and, when she attempted to break up with him, raping her.
(Combs denied all the allegations, and the pair settled the lawsuit the next day; the terms have not been disclosed.)
In the year following, her impact has been nothing short of seismic.
Leading up to Ventura’s lawsuit, Combs had been enjoying a career victory lap. Mayor Eric Adams gifted him the key to New York City; the music industry feted his contributions.
In the wake of Ventura’s filing, dozens more men and women began suing Combs for sexual abuse, with allegations such as sexual harassment, unwanted groping, gang rape and sex trafficking. Several cited Ventura’s complaint as both triggering and validating, giving them the courage to tell their own stories.
“It was the filing of the lawsuit about his abuse of Cassie Ventura on November 16, 2023, that forced her to face his assault again,” read the first of an additional 28 lawsuits that would be filed by the one-year anniversary, expressing a sentiment that would be repeated.
All together, the accusations span the entirety of Combs’s career, which began in the early 1990s. Combs has vehemently denied all allegations of wrongdoing.
Dorothy Carvello, a former music A and R exec and industry whistleblower, called Ventura’s lawsuit a “tremendous and courageous act” allowing the singer to regain her own narrative and power. And the ensuing federal case against Combs could finally spur much-needed accountability and change in the music industry, she said.
Seven years after the first wave of #MeToo reporting shook Hollywood, the federal indictment against Combs may be the most sweeping and significant #MeToo case to ever hit the music industry, potentially implicating not just Combs and his associates, but also the entertainment industry and celebrity culture writ large.
But the deluge of lawsuits – and public hunger for more alleged celebrity accomplices to be named – has made it easy to lose Ventura, even if it was her story that opened the floodgates.
Ventura’s lawsuit would not have been possible in a pre-#MeToo world. Then, the singer’s claims – which span from 2007 to 2018 – would have fallen outside the statute of limitations for most states, including New York, where the suit was filed.
But in May 2022, New York’s state legislature passed the Adult Survivors Act, creating a one-year lookback window for adult victims of sex abuse to file civil suits that would otherwise have been time-barred. (New York City had already passed its own law, extending the lookback window on these cases to March 2025.)
Survivor advocates lauded the bill’s passing, noting that it often takes years for victims to reckon with their experiences and build the courage to confront their abuser.
That’s because civil suits give survivors an avenue to share their truth, as well as the resources to put their lives back together, noted attorney Ann Olivarius, who specializes in sex abuse and discrimination cases.
Criminal trials require an “enormous amount of proof” and can take years to wind through the legal system, Olivarius added. And aside from punishing the alleged abuser, a criminal trial “doesn’t do anything for the victims,” she said.
Ventura filed her suit against Combs a week before New York’s lookback window was set to expire.
Her complaint instantly recast her romantic relationship with Combs, tarnishing the glamorous image the pair had put on display for more than a decade.
The amount of detail in Ventura’s lawsuit was significant, Olivarius said, allowing other alleged victims of Combs to recognize themselves in Ventura’s story.
“It’s made a huge difference,” Olivarius said of Ventura’s decision to file the suit. “She’s going to get justice for a lot of people.”
Ventura has addressed her relationship with Combs only once since then, posting a message on Instagram shortly after the 2016 hotel footage was leaked. In it, she asked people to believe victims of domestic violence “the first time,” adding, “I offer my hand to those that are still living in fear.”
The #MeToo movement may have paved the way for Ventura’s lawsuit, but her story – and the public response to it – have also served as a measuring stick for how cultural attitudes around sexual assault and celebrity have changed.
Writer Jamilah Lemieux noticed how quickly the public – and, specifically, hip-hop fans – accepted the idea of Combs as an alleged serial abuser. This stood in stark contrast to how fans responded to sexual assault allegations made against R. Kelly and Bill Cosby.
“When a famous man, and in particular a famous Black man, is accused of some sort of crime against the woman, there’s usually a lot of people tripping over their feet to make excuses or to discredit the victim,” Lemieux said.
In part, that may be a reflection of Combs’s own checkered – and well-documented – reputation for violence and questionable business practices.
But even as there has been widespread condemnation of Combs across social media, there has been little from his peers in the record industry. This doesn’t surprise Lemieux.
“In hip-hop, that’s generally the way it goes … When I think back to any time a man in hip-hop has been accused of violence against women, it’s been radio silence from the industry,” she said. People were happy to look at R. Kelly, who was convicted of child sexual abuse, as an anomaly, Lemieux pointed out, even as he was found guilty of racketeering – meaning Kelly wasn’t alone in his actions.
Ventura’s lawsuit and others have alleged that Combs had many colluders in his alleged abuse, including celebrity friends, industry peers and staff at his various companies.
In September, another one of Combs’s former artists, Danity Kane singer Dawn Richard, sued Combs, accusing him of sexual assault, kidnapping and “inhumane working conditions.” In her filing, Richard recounted several instances witnessing Combs allegedly hit Ventura in full view of some of music’s most powerful executives.
This alleged lack of interference – let alone consequences – for Combs’s behaviour alarmed Richard, she said in her lawsuit, reinforcing the idea that Combs could harm her and “his actions would be accepted and normalized by everyone around him.”
The exploitation and abuse of young women is endemic to the music industry – and has been since its inception, said Carvello.
Carvello’s memoir, “Anything For a Hit,” recounts her experiences in the business, including her time as a secretary to Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, whom she has accused of physical and sexual assault and harassment. (Ertegun died in 2006.)
According to Carvello, the executives she worked for made no attempt to hide their behaviour. In an ongoing 2022 lawsuit filed against Atlantic Records and parent company Warner Music Group, among others, Carvello claims that Ertegun “often masturbated in her presence, particularly when dictating correspondence.” (In a statement last year, WMG said its board and management “have made significant enhancements to our policies and procedures and take any allegations of misconduct seriously and are consistently working toward eliminating all forms of discrimination and harassment.”)
“The ‘freak off’’ was invented at Atlantic Records,” Carvello said.
Attempts to report bad behaviour to human resources went nowhere, she said.
After her book was published, Carvello said many female artists and women working in the industry came to her sharing their own experiences of being pushed out because of its “sexually charged” and “abusive” environment. She’s hopeful that Combs’s trial could expose the industry’s underbelly and spur much needed change.
But what of Ventura?
Carvello wonders how the industry will respond to the once-promising singer if she ever chooses to make music again. Will it embrace her? Or will it continue to look the other way?
History has shown that women get “blackballed,” she said.
“The abuser always remains in the business.”
For years, fans had long assumed that Ventura’s relationship and its imagined spoils may have dulled her appetite to make music. Nearly 20 years after her debut, she has still made only one full-length album.
Ventura’s allegations suggest a far more sinister reason for those delays and deferrals.
It’s worthwhile to revisit her old interviews and songs – to see her beyond the worst moments of her life. To listen to what she had to say.
An interview from 2017 shows Ventura, her eyes covered by dark shades, her voice coarse and gravelly (a late night hosting a party, she said), but gushing about new music. She had a new single, “Love a Loser,” and was working on her long-awaited sophomore album. It was “very personal,” she said – based on experiences she had gone through or witnessed.
What may have sounded like standard pop fare takes on a different tone today.
“Got my vision clearer so I’m seeing right through you,” Ventura sings in “Love a Loser.” Then, in the chorus: “Tell me is it me or the drugs, ’cause baby, I can’t tell.”
In the short film pegged to the song, which Ventura ended up titling, simply, “Cassie,” she plays out a volatile relationship with her love interest. In voice-over, Ventura frequently expresses a desire to “escape” and disappear.”
The final scenes in both the 10-minute video and its abridged version show Ventura driving through a vast, barren landscape, alone but hopeful.
“You know what I love about the desert is the stars,” Ventura says as she steers toward the horizon. “Because in all that darkness, it’s still so bright.”