Cassie instructed her story — and launched the downfall of Diddy

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When you had been to break down the previous yr of Sean “Diddy” Combs’s life into one picture, you would possibly say it’s the scene at his Los Angeles mansion in March, when helicopters and black Suburbans crammed with legislation enforcement raided his residence.

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You could possibly argue it’s the onetime billionaire music mogul being arrested in New York by federal brokers in September, or the Impressionist-style sketches of him in a Manhattan courtroom final month.

However in all chance, you’ll most likely level to the picture of Combs storming half-naked down a resort hallway in leaked 2016 resort footage, a white towel rapidly thrown round his waist, in pursuit of his then-girlfriend, Cassie. Or the one among her within the fetal place, as Combs stands over her touchdown blow after blow.

It’s a haunting, sickening scene. Haunting, too, is that this consideration: For all of the years Cassie had spent within the highlight with Combs, we had been trying previous her.

That modified on Nov. 16, 2023, when Cassie, underneath her authorized identify Casandra Ventura, filed a 35-page lawsuit towards Combs alleging years of bodily and sexual abuse, coercion and intercourse trafficking. The claims had been startling of their element, accusing Ventura’s former lover and employer of greater than a decade of unchecked cruelty.

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Ventura claimed that Combs, at 37, coerced her right into a romantic relationship at 19, when he signed her to his label, Unhealthy Boy Information. For greater than 10 years, her lawsuit stated, Combs would ply her with medicine and power her to take part in intercourse events, known as “freak offs.” She accused him of isolating her, beating her and, when she tried to interrupt up with him, raping her.

(Combs denied all of the allegations, and the pair settled the lawsuit the subsequent day; the phrases haven’t been disclosed.)

Within the yr following, her influence has been nothing wanting seismic.

Main as much as Ventura’s lawsuit, Combs had been having fun with a profession victory lap. Mayor Eric Adams gifted him the important thing to New York Metropolis; the music trade feted his contributions.

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Within the wake of Ventura’s submitting, dozens extra women and men started suing Combs for sexual abuse, with allegations akin to sexual harassment, undesirable groping, gang rape and intercourse trafficking. A number of cited Ventura’s criticism as each triggering and validating, giving them the braveness to inform their very own tales.

“It was the submitting of the lawsuit about his abuse of Cassie Ventura on November 16, 2023, that pressured her to face his assault once more,” learn the primary of a further 28 lawsuits that may be filed by the one-year anniversary, expressing a sentiment that may be repeated.

All collectively, the accusations span the whole thing of Combs’s profession, which started within the early Nineteen Nineties. Combs has vehemently denied all allegations of wrongdoing.

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Dorothy Carvello, a former music A and R exec and trade whistleblower, known as Ventura’s lawsuit a “large and brave act” permitting the singer to regain her personal narrative and energy. And the following federal case towards Combs might lastly spur much-needed accountability and alter within the music trade, she stated.

Seven years after the primary wave of #MeToo reporting shook Hollywood, the federal indictment towards Combs often is the most sweeping and important #MeToo case to ever hit the music trade, probably implicating not simply Combs and his associates, but additionally the leisure trade and superstar tradition writ massive.

However the deluge of lawsuits – and public starvation for extra alleged superstar accomplices to be named – has made it simple to lose Ventura, even when it was her story that opened the floodgates.

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Ventura’s lawsuit wouldn’t have been doable in a pre-#MeToo world. Then, the singer’s claims – which span from 2007 to 2018 – would have fallen exterior the statute of limitations for many states, together with New York, the place the swimsuit was filed.

However in Could 2022, New York’s state legislature handed the Grownup Survivors Act, making a one-year lookback window for grownup victims of intercourse abuse to file civil fits that may in any other case have been time-barred. (New York Metropolis had already handed its personal legislation, extending the lookback window on these instances to March 2025.)

Survivor advocates lauded the invoice’s passing, noting that it usually takes years for victims to reckon with their experiences and construct the braveness to confront their abuser.

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That’s as a result of civil fits give survivors an avenue to share their reality, in addition to the sources to place their lives again collectively, famous legal professional Ann Olivarius, who focuses on intercourse abuse and discrimination instances.

Felony trials require an “monumental quantity of proof” and may take years to wind via the authorized system, Olivarius added. And apart from punishing the alleged abuser, a prison trial “doesn’t do something for the victims,” she stated.

Ventura filed her swimsuit towards Combs every week earlier than New York’s lookback window was set to run out.

Her criticism immediately recast her romantic relationship with Combs, tarnishing the glamorous picture the pair had placed on show for greater than a decade.

The quantity of element in Ventura’s lawsuit was important, Olivarius stated, permitting different alleged victims of Combs to acknowledge themselves in Ventura’s story.

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“It’s made an enormous distinction,” Olivarius stated of Ventura’s resolution to file the swimsuit. “She’s going to get justice for lots of people.”

Ventura has addressed her relationship with Combs solely as soon as since then, posting a message on Instagram shortly after the 2016 resort footage was leaked. In it, she requested individuals to consider victims of home violence “the primary time,” including, “I provide my hand to those who are nonetheless dwelling in worry.”

The #MeToo motion might have paved the best way for Ventura’s lawsuit, however her story – and the general public response to it – have additionally served as a measuring stick for the way cultural attitudes round sexual assault and superstar have modified.

Author Jamilah Lemieux observed how shortly the general public – and, particularly, hip-hop followers – accepted the thought of Combs as an alleged serial abuser. This stood in stark distinction to how followers responded to sexual assault allegations made towards R. Kelly and Invoice Cosby.

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“When a well-known man, and particularly a well-known Black man, is accused of some type of crime towards the girl, there’s often lots of people tripping over their ft to make excuses or to discredit the sufferer,” Lemieux stated.

Partially, that could be a mirrored image of Combs’s personal checkered – and well-documented – repute for violence and questionable enterprise practices.

However whilst there was widespread condemnation of Combs throughout social media, there was little from his friends within the file trade. This doesn’t shock Lemieux.

“In hip-hop, that’s usually the best way it goes … After I suppose again to any time a person in hip-hop has been accused of violence towards girls, it’s been radio silence from the trade,” she stated. Individuals had been blissful to take a look at R. Kelly, who was convicted of kid sexual abuse, as an anomaly, Lemieux identified, whilst he was discovered responsible of racketeering – which means Kelly wasn’t alone in his actions.

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Ventura’s lawsuit and others have alleged that Combs had many colluders in his alleged abuse, together with superstar mates, trade friends and employees at his numerous corporations.

In September, one other one among Combs’s former artists, Danity Kane singer Daybreak Richard, sued Combs, accusing him of sexual assault, kidnapping and “inhumane working situations.” In her submitting, Richard recounted a number of cases witnessing Combs allegedly hit Ventura in full view of a few of music’s strongest executives.

This alleged lack of interference – not to mention penalties – for Combs’s behaviour alarmed Richard, she stated in her lawsuit, reinforcing the concept that Combs might hurt her and “his actions could be accepted and normalized by everybody round him.”

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The exploitation and abuse of younger girls is endemic to the music trade – and has been since its inception, stated Carvello.

Carvello’s memoir, “Something For a Hit,” recounts her experiences within the enterprise, together with her time as a secretary to Atlantic Information co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, whom she has accused of bodily and sexual assault and harassment. (Ertegun died in 2006.)

In accordance with Carvello, the executives she labored for made no try to cover their behaviour. In an ongoing 2022 lawsuit filed towards Atlantic Information and guardian firm Warner Music Group, amongst others, Carvello claims that Ertegun “usually masturbated in her presence, significantly when dictating correspondence.” (In a press release final yr, WMG stated its board and administration “have made important enhancements to our insurance policies and procedures and take any allegations of misconduct severely and are constantly working towards eliminating all types of discrimination and harassment.”)

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“The ‘freak off’’ was invented at Atlantic Information,” Carvello stated.

Makes an attempt to report dangerous behaviour to human sources went nowhere, she stated.

After her ebook was revealed, Carvello stated many feminine artists and girls working within the trade got here to her sharing their very own experiences of being pushed out due to its “sexually charged” and “abusive” surroundings. She’s hopeful that Combs’s trial might expose the trade’s underbelly and spur a lot wanted change.

However what of Ventura?

Carvello wonders how the trade will reply to the once-promising singer if she ever chooses to make music once more. Will it embrace her? Or will it proceed to look the opposite approach?

Historical past has proven that girls get “blackballed,” she stated.

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“The abuser all the time stays within the enterprise.”

For years, followers had lengthy assumed that Ventura’s relationship and its imagined spoils might have dulled her urge for food to make music. Practically 20 years after her debut, she has nonetheless made just one full-length album.

Ventura’s allegations recommend a much more sinister purpose for these delays and deferrals.

It’s worthwhile to revisit her previous interviews and songs – to see her past the worst moments of her life. To take heed to what she needed to say.

An interview from 2017 exhibits Ventura, her eyes lined by darkish shades, her voice coarse and gravelly (a late night time internet hosting a celebration, she stated), however gushing about new music. She had a brand new single, “Love a Loser,” and was engaged on her long-awaited sophomore album. It was “very private,” she stated – primarily based on experiences she had gone via or witnessed.

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What might have appeared like normal pop fare takes on a distinct tone as we speak.

“Obtained my imaginative and prescient clearer so I’m seeing proper via you,” Ventura sings in “Love a Loser.” Then, within the refrain: “Inform me is it me or the medicine, ’trigger child, I can’t inform.”

Within the quick movie pegged to the music, which Ventura ended up titling, merely, “Cassie,” she performs out a risky relationship along with her love curiosity. In voice-over, Ventura often expresses a need to “escape” and disappear.”

The ultimate scenes in each the 10-minute video and its abridged model present Ventura driving via an enormous, barren panorama, alone however hopeful.

“You already know what I like in regards to the desert is the celebs,” Ventura says as she steers towards the horizon. “As a result of in all that darkness, it’s nonetheless so brilliant.”

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