On May 14th, Cassie Ventura testified during the trial of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and revealed she was addicted to opiates during their relationship.
Ventura, who is eight and a half months pregnant, was in a relationship with Combs for more than a decade. She began her testimony on May 13th and is expected to be at the stand for several more days.
Combs is charged with five counts of sex trafficking, racketeering, and sexual abuse. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
On May 13th, Ventura discussed how drugs would fuel their ‘freak-offs’, which could last up to four days, stating they used ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana, ketamine, and mushrooms at different points. “Whatever was the drug of choice at that point,” she said, before stating this would help with “dissociating” from the experience.
Following the end of the ‘freak-offs’, Ventura would take more drugs, such as opiates, in order to combat her come down from other drugs, such as ecstasy.
According to the New York Times, on May 14th, the prosecution showed a text message from 2016 from Combs to Ventura suggesting a freak-off without ketamine, as a “successful” one would be an occasion they “remember”. Ventura then told the court that ketamine was her preferred drug for the occasions as she found “it was very dissociative”.
Later on, during the same session on May 14th, Venture discussed her “off-and-on” addiction to opiates, sharing, “Opiates made me feel numb, which is why I relied on them so heavily”.
The singer continued: “I didn’t want to feel what was actually going on in my mind, in my life, in real time. It was just an escape for me.”
Under oath, Ventura also claimed that Combs gave her opiates on multiple occasions, which occurred more frequently at the start of their relationship.
Ventura’s testimony remains ongoing and is set to continue for a number of days.
Combs denies all of the charges.
