Cassie told Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs ‘I’m not a rag doll’ after 2016 hotel assault

By Canadian Press on May 16, 2025.

NEW YORK (AP) — R&B singer Cassie delved into text messages with her ex-boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs as she resumed testifying in his sex trafficking trial Friday, saying she told him “I’m not a rag doll. I’m somebody’s child” after he beat her at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.

Cassie was back on the witness stand for a second day of cross-examination by Combs’ lawyers, after having been forced the day before to read aloud explicit and lurid messages she sent Combs during their tumultuous, nearly 11-year relationship that ended in 2018.

The singer is the prosecution’s star witness. Her lawsuit in 2023 accused Combs of physical and sexual abuse, and it set in motion the investigation which culminated in this month’s trial. Several other women who accuse him of abuse are set to testify.

Combs’ lawyers are seeking to portray Cassie to the jury as a willing and eager participant in the hip-hop mogul’s sexual lifestyle. Prosecutors allege he exploited his status as a music executive and businessman to violently force Cassie and other women into marathon encounters with sex workers that he called “freak-offs,” which sometimes lasted days.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges. His defense says that, while he could be violent, nothing he did amounted to a criminal enterprise. And Combs insists all the sex at the freak-offs was consensual.

Cassie has testified that she felt forced by Combs to have sex with male escorts while he watched and directed the activities. She said she was worried about Combs beating her and that he threatened to publicly release videos of the encounters.

Through text messages read aloud in court Friday, Combs attorney Anna Estevao showed jurors that Combs and Cassie were expressing love to one another again just days after the Los Angeles hotel attack as they tried to recover from the episode. Cassie told Combs in one text: “We need a different vibe from Friday.”

On Thursday, Estevao presented Cassie with sexual texts she sent Combs before the freak-off at the hotel that preceded the assault. That followed Cassie reading some texts she sent him expressing enthusiasm for the sexual encounters.

The hotel attack was caught on security video that was publicly released last year. Combs apologized and said he was “disgusted” by his actions.

In the recording, Combs can be seen slinging Cassie to the floor, kicking her and dragging her into a hotel hallway. Estevao had Cassie read aloud a text message in which she complained that Combs was out of control from drugs and alcohol that day and told him: “I’m not a rag doll. I’m somebody’s child.”

Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, has been on the witness stand since Tuesday and the cross-examination by the defense began Thursday.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie has.

Before the trial resumed, prosecutors asked the judge to order an end to the defense questioning by the end of Friday, citing concerns that the pregnant Cassie is nearing the birth of her third child. They said it seemed defense lawyers were intent on making Cassie to return to the witness stand on Monday, and they were worried there was a risk of a mistrial if she went into labor over the weekend.

A lawyer for Combs claimed on Thursday that prosecutors purposely delayed calling Cassie to testify until Tuesday, after two other witnesses took the stand, so that the defense would have less time to cross-examine her. In an overnight letter to the judge, prosecutors shot back that it appeared defense lawyers were trying to “filibuster.”

Judge Arun Subramanian asked Combs’ attorney Friday morning if they had any issue finishing by the end of the day, but they did not directly answer the question.

Combs, 55, has been jailed since September. He faces at least 15 years in prison if convicted.

Cassie’s lawsuit against Combs was settled for $20 million — a figure she disclosed for the first time Wednesday — but dozens of similar legal claims followed from other women.

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Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

Michael R. Sisak And Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press

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