Sean Combs’ Ex Testifies Cassie Lawsuit Was Like ‘Reading My Own Story’
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Sean Combs’ Ex Testifies Cassie Lawsuit Was Like ‘Reading My Own Story’

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Sean Combs‘ ex-girlfriend said she was in a state of shock after reading the bombshell sexual assault lawsuit that Casandra “Cassie” Ventura filed against the mogul in November 2023. “I almost fainted; in fact, I think I did,” the woman told a New York jury Monday. “I just reacted like, ‘I can’t believe I’m reading my own story.’”

The witness, using the pseudonym “Jane,” returned to the stand for her third day of testimony, clutching a light blue stress ball. Jane dated Combs between 2021 and 2024 and has said their relationship began as a whirlwind romance. Still, after she consented to her first freak-off a few months into their romance, she likened it to opening up “a Pandora’s box” that she was unable to shut.

Reading Ventura’s 35-page civil lawsuit (which was quickly settled) was particularly jarring to Jane, she said, because just a few weeks before the complaint was filed, Jane had tried to confront Combs about the freak-offs and express her desire to stop. Earlier in the day, she read a series of texts she sent Combs between Oct. 15 and Oct. 25, 2023, in which she said that the freak-offs were “desensitizing sex for me” and that she felt “violated” after “three years of me having to fuck strangers.”

“I’m not an animal; I’m not a porn star,” Jane said in one message. “I need a break. I don’t want to do anything. I’ve hit a wall.”

Jane has been referred to as Victim-2 in the Southern District of New York’s sex trafficking and racketeering case against the hip-hop mogul. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the five felony counts against him.

Ventura’s account of the R&B singer’s decade-long relationship with Combs bore a “harrowing resemblance”to how Jane felt about her nights in “dark hotel” rooms, she testified on Monday. There were three particular pages of Ventura’s lawsuit that Jane said she felt described what she went through. “I was bewildered,” she said. “I was in shock … I just couldn’t sleep. I was reading these pages; it felt like a nightmare.”

What Jane knew as “hotel nights” were strikingly similar to the freak-offs that Ventura said she was forced into throughout her decade-long relationship with Combs. The nights would typically follow the same routine, both women said. Music pulsed in the background of a dimly lit hotel suite, which was decorated with white candles and other mood lighting. Sheets and towels covered the furniture in preparation for the numerous bottles of baby oil the woman and male escort would go through.

Combs allegedly expected the women to take ecstasy, dress in provocative lingerie, and wear towering stripper heels as they seduced a male sex worker by pouring baby oil over their bodies until they glistened. Combs would allegedly give instructions to the women on when they should advance to the next phase of the highly choreographed sexual encounter.

Jane contacted Combs three days after Ventura’s lawsuit went public, texting him that reading Ventura’s lawsuit was like reading her own “sexual trauma” that she had been trying to voice to Combs. “It makes me sick how three pages wordfor word is exactly my experience and my anguish, even two ofmy own birthdays and had me perform,” Jane wrote. “Even recently throwing up at a hotel inL.A. because I was finally sober and disgusted and felt soforced to perform back-to-back and just wanting it all to end.”

“The sick part is you knew this was coming and you gaslit me andmade me feel crazy about the sex trauma I was developingknowing you’ve been here before and this is just the sick thingthat you do,” Jane added. “I feel manipulated. This was never love between us. It’s also clear that this was sexual exploitation that youfeigned as love for your sick fetishes.”

In a recorded call from later that day, which appeared to come from Combs’ chief of staff Kristina Khorram’s seized devices, Combs attempts to soothe and console a sobbing Jane. However, his tone quickly shifts when Jane pushes back on the idea that the two were both were just having “kinky fun” together.

“That’s not how I saw things,” Jane firmly responds, prompting Combs to raise his voice and accuse Jane of recording him.

After Ventura’s lawsuit was filed and settled, Jane said she went three months without seeing Combs, but the pair communicated frequently via text and voice notes over the next month. In some of these messages, which were shared with the jury, Jane expressed her anger and frustration with Combs. In one text from Dec. 7, 2023 text, she told him, “Please stop using women for your fetish” and “leave women alone who don’t want to do those nights with you. Hire prostitutes and stop emotionally harming women who love you.”

Combs responded, “You trying to set me up. This is crazy, fucking crazy, you’re recording on our phone calls?”

Jane denied this and told Combs he would “never understand because you’re so deep in your own lies that you tell yourself.”

In another exchange, Combs reached out to Jane asking if she was dating. She sent him a voice memo in response, which was not played for the jury, though they did see a text she sent soon after, “I became the side chick and sex worker in my own relationship.”

By the end of the month, Jane testified, she spoke with Combs over FaceTime, and he appeared to offer her compensation to help her move on. Jane said Combs repeatedly told her things like “charge me for your resentment,” “I just need you to get over this,” and, “I don’t want any loose ends.” Jane then sent Combs a text containing terms that would see him pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Combs allegedly told her in response that she was an opportunist and a liar. Jane said she and Combs continued to bicker, and she eventually told him, “I’m going to kill myself.” Later, she texted him, “I want to die.”

Asked about this remark, Jane testified, “I wanted everything to go black,” adding, “I was so overwhelmed with the evil —just energy, and it was so evil. This time was very evil and dark.”

According to Jane, Combs also threatened to leak sex tapes of her to the father of her child.(Ventura also claimed that Combs would threaten to release explicit videos of her taken during freak-offs as a form of blackmail.)

Jane texted Khorram about this alleged threat, writing, “He said that he would expose me and send them to my child’s father. He has been bothering me for two months.” Jane testified that Khorram said in response that she would hide the phones that the explicit videos were on.

According to Jane, Khorram also suggested Jane and Combs give each other space: “I always tell him all the time to just give these things space,” Khorram said, according to Jane. “Otherwise we end up in the situation like we’re in now” (Jane said she took this to be a reference to Ventura’s lawsuit.)

After several months without contact, Jane and Combs reconnected for her birthday in February 2024, and got back together soon after in Miami. “Sean had candlelit the whole entryway to the otherhouse, and I remember when I saw him, my heart started beatingsuper fast and I feel like his heart was beating super fasttoo,” Jane said.

After a five-course meal and gifts, Jane said they drank alcohol and took ecstasy. At some point, Jane said, Combs asked if she wanted to have sex with one of the escorts that frequently partook in hotel nights, and Jane agreed.Asked why she agreed, Jane responded, “At this point, I’m just so used to this being the outcome of whatever we’re doing that I just accept it.”

Jane said there were more hotel nights after that. But Jane also testified that by early March, Combs texted her, “I would appreciate it if you could sign something for me so I could have closure comfortably.”

Near the end of March 2024, however, Homeland Security investigators raided Combs’ homes in Miami and Los Angeles. Jane testified that authorities also left a business card at her home that day, but she did not speak to anyone in Homeland Security.

Rather, Jane said, she called Combs and his security guard. At some point, Combs hired a lawyer for Jane, and Jane confirmed that Combs continues to pay for the lawyer representing her now.

Not long after the raids, Jane testified that another escort she frequently had sex with during hotel nights, Sly, threatened to release a sex tape he had of them. According to Jane, Sly said he had a 35-minute video of one of their encounters, because Combs had accidentally used Sly’s phone to record it instead of his own.

“My heart was beating out of my chest and I couldn’t believe what he was saying to me,” Jane testified, after Sly allegedly demanded $10,000 for the tape.

Jane went on to say she contacted Combs, who got his lawyers involved. While Jane tried to push back against Sly’s threats, she said she eventually received a call from an unnamed media company saying they’d bought the tape and asking her for comment. “I fainted and I called my lawyer,” Jane said. (The tape was never released and Jane said that she hasn’t spoken with Sly since.)

As her testimony continued, Jane revealed that she was with Combs the day in May that CNN broadcast the video of him assaulting Ventura in the InterContinental Hotel. While Jane said that Combs primarily huddled with family and friends in the aftermath, she recalled a conversation they had about the tape a few weeks later.

Jane testified that Combs told her “that was the only time [he and Ventura] had physical violence like that.” She also said Combs told her that Ventura “was a hitter and that she would hit.” (Ventura and several other witnesses testified about numerous occasions during which Combs allegedly assaulted her.)

Not long after that, Jane testified, she allegedly had a violent confrontation of her own with Combs. On June 18, 2024 — “a very terrible day,” Jane said — Combs came to her house in Los Angeles for a date night. Prior to that, Combs had been in Utah on a family trip, though Jane confronted him that night over who was actually there with him. She said she made “an assumption that he was with another woman,” and admitted to calling Combs a “pedophile” because she thought the woman he was with was about 25 years younger than Combs (though she was over 18).

They began to argue and at one point, Jane said she pushed Combs’ head into a marble kitchen counter, though she did not see any marks or injuries. Jane also said she began throwing candles and glass around the house and at Combs, while telling Combs she hated him. “I think he was probably cursing and calling me crazy,” Jane testified.

As the fight escalated, Jane said she locked herself in her bedroom. She testified that Combs kicked the door off its hinges, prompting her to run into a closet, where she said she changed out of a dress and into clothes she could run in. When Combs allegedly broke into the closet, Jane said she made a break for the front door, but Combs stopped her.

“Sean kicked me in the back of my thigh, and I fell down,” Jane testified. “He put me in a chokehold on the ground, lifted me up, and I couldn’t breathe, and I was on my tippy toes.”

Jane said she fled from the house and hid nearby for about two hours. Eventually, she made her way back to the house, assuming Combs would be gone, only to find him waiting for her on the street. “I was scared, but I was quiet and I just kept walking back to the house because I didn’t want to wake up the neighbors,” Jane said.

Back in the house, Jane said, she and Combs exchanged blows. “I punched him and then he punched me,” she said. Jane testified that she did not see any injuries on Combs after hitting him in the temple. She alleged that Combs punched her twice in the head, “on my forehead and around my eye area.”

Jane said she ran into the backyard and fell “into a ball” on the ground, covering her head. “He started punching my head. He started kicking me. He started saying all kinds of things and just kept punching me,” Jane testified, adding that Combs accused her of “trying to take him away from his kids and family.”

According to Jane, Combs then dragged her by the hair and arm back into the house. Inside, Jane said she put on makeup and pushed her hair to the side to cover any injuries because Combs was inviting over an escort. Jane testified that Combs told her, “We’re not gonna end the night like this.”

Jane said that, after the escort arrived, Combs insisted she take an ecstasy pill, again claiming that Combs told her she wasn’t going to ruin his night. When Combs offered her the pill, Jane testified that she told him, “I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to.”

Combs allegedly got close to her face and forcefully said, “Is this coercion?”

Jane said that she took the pill. She said that she performed oral sex on the escort for what “felt like forever” and then had sex with him. “Sean was watching. I just felt disgusted. I felt terrible,” Jane said.

Jane said she saw Combs a few more times that summer. In late July 2024, she met him in Miami and said they stayed up all night having sex in a hotel room. At one point, however, Jane said she told Combs she was feeling tired. While Combs had allegedly told her before to speak up when she wanted to rest, Jane claimed that this time his demeanor changed. She claimed that Combs called her names and threw water bottles at her, but eventually apologized.

The last time they saw each other, Jane said, was the following month at Combs’ Miami home. “When we were together, we were just in our same routine, having sex and everything, then he says we should invite Don,” she said, referring to an escort.

But even after that, Jane said, she and Combs continued to communicate through text. Jane even said she was supposed to go to New York City to visit him in September 2024, but the trip was called off after Combs’ arrest.

As her testimony drew to a close, Jane touched on how she was still processing her relationship with Combs, saying she had only been in therapy for three months. In particular, she stayed quiet about the June 2024 fight because she was “still processing that night and I didn’t want it to be a reality.” The first time she did speak up about it was during an April 2025 with Combs’ defense team. While she was not obligated to do this, Jane said her decision was “fear-based” and she “did not want to anger Sean.”

Ultimately, though, Jane stopped meeting with the defense, saying she decided to choose and honor herself. “I just pray for his continued healing, and I pray for peace for him,” Jane responded when she was asked how she felt about Combs.

Earlier on Monday, Jane spoke about one of her attempts to put a pause on these highly choreographed sexual encounters with male escorts that could last upwards of two days straight. One of the October 2023 text exchanges discussed in court was prompted by a photo Jane saw of Combs on social media with one of his ex-girlfriends.

Jane said she was “furious” and texted Combs to arrange the encounter with his ex. Combs replied that Jane was “the only thing that’s going to put me at peace,” to which Jane said, “It’s not me, it’s the entertainment that puts you at peace.”

During the text conversation, Jane told Combs, “I don’t feel like performing loveless, cold sex.” She later said, “I need a break. I don’t want to do anything, I’ve hit a wall.” And, “It’s been three years of having to fuck strangers.”

Combs, in turn, promised Jane that they could spend a day together with “no strangers,” and that they didn’t have to have sex. But Jane was skeptical, texting him, “You beat the love out of us. You made it crystal clear exactly what you want me for. You’re going to spend the day … lovebombing me so you can get what you want? It’s not genuine. I’ve hit a mental and spiritual wall.”

Jane then told the court, “Whenever he wanted me or one of these nights, the lovebombing or persistency would start.”

In another set of texts Jane sent Combs that October, she told him, “You placed and paid all of these harmful men on me and risked my health. This was never love. I regret everything and all this dark toxic shit that entered my life.”

Jane went on to say that Combs tried to calm her down over a phone call. She texted him afterward that she was “processing some sort of trauma and just need some healing time to get back to myself,” while adding, “I feel as your lover, I wanted to please you and destress you and I pushed through and went along with things even when deep down I wanted the night to be over.”

Jane also acknowledged in a text that she knew that she “was consenting, and like you say on tape, you could never tell I was uncomfortable but being in myposition I just didn’t want to let you down and in turn I let myself down.”

That was in reference to a phone call with Combs, during which he allegedly told her, “If anyone were to watch these tapes, they would’ve thought you were having the best time; they look like you were consenting.”

Asked by prosecutor Maurene Comey if this was true, Jane paused, and finally responded, “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

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Prosecutors said they consider Jane a victim of sex trafficking by fraud. (Ventura was allegedly sex trafficked by physical force and coercion.) The single mother said she was desperate for one-on-one time with Combs and claimed that Combs would dangle the carrot of spending quality time together after freak-offs, which would rarely materialize.

Throughout her emotional testimony, Jane discussed the various ways Combs and his staff allegedly coerced or forced her into doing things she was not comfortable with — a dynamic that’s at the heart of the government’s case against Combs. Along with her participation in the hotel nights, this also included, Jane testified, instances where she was asked to fly with drugs for Combs. If she didn’t return Combs’ calls, Jane said she’d receive incessant calls from members of his team.

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