Cassie’s Response to Abuse Video Is a Needful Reminder to Believe Survivors
"My only ask is that EVERYONE open your heart to believing victims the first time," Ventura wrote in an Instagram post a week after surveillance footage showed Diddy attacking her in 2016.
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On Thursday, Cassie Ventura addressed the horrific surveillance footage that showed Sean “Diddy” Combs brutalizing her in a hotel hallway in 2016.
“Thank you for all the love and support from my family, friends, strangers and those I have yet to meet,” the singer wrote in a heartbreaking Instagram post. “The outpouring of love has created a place for my younger self to settle and feel safe now, but this is only the beginning.”
Last week, a video of Combs repeatedly shoving, punching, and kicking Ventura—then, his partner of over a decade—in a hallway at the InterContinental hotel in March 2016 was obtained and published by CNN. While the abuse was seen on film for the first time, I must note that it had already been extensively detailed in Ventura’s November 2023 suit against Combs (and elsewhere). In the filing, Ventura described innumerable “dark times” during her relationship with Combs and alleged she had been “trapped in a cycle of abuse violence, and sex trafficking” since their relationship began when she was 19 years old. One day after the suit made headlines, Combs settled with Ventura for an undisclosed sum.
“Domestic violence is THE issue. It broke me down to someone I never thought I would become,” Ventura’s post went on. “My only ask is that EVERYONE open your heart to believing victims the first time.”