Video footage from 2016 of Sean “Diddy” Combs seen kicking, hitting and dragging then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura has surfaced
The hotel surveillance video, obtained by CNN and released Friday, is reportedly from March 5, 2016, and compiled from multiple camera angles. The incident matched an allegation levied in Ventura’s November sex trafficking, rape and physical abuse lawsuit against the hip hop mogul. The two settled the civil suit one day after it was filed.
In the video, Ventura is seen in a black sweater with the hood up and duffle bag in hand, calling an elevator in what CNN reports is the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles. In a different camera angle, Diddy is seen in a bath towel running down the hotel hallway.
He catches up with Ventura before the elevator comes, striking and yanking Ventura by the hair and throwing her to the ground. The producer then kicks Ventura twice while she lies on the ground, picking up her bag and dragging her back toward the hotel rooms.
He then lets her go, appearing to say something to her as he walks back to a hotel room with her bag.
“The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behavior of Mr. Combs,” Doug Wigdor, Ventura’s lawyer, said in a statement to media Friday. “Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms. Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”
In the video, Ventura is then seen picking up a phone near the elevators in the hotel hallway. In a different clip, Combs walks back from the room to the hallway and lunges toward where Ventura was just seen.
In a different video angle, Diddy is seen sitting on a chair and throwing a vase on a table down the hallway
In Ventura’s now-settled lawsuit, she recalled an incident in which Diddy “became extremely intoxicated and punched Ms. Ventura in the face, giving her a black eye.”
“After he fell asleep, Ms. Ventura tried to leave the hotel room, but as she exited, Mr. Combs awoke and began screaming at Ms. Ventura,” the suit continued. “He followed her into the hallway of the hotel while yelling at her. He grabbed at her, and then took glass vases in the hallway and threw them at her, causing glass to crash around them as she ran to the elevator to escape.”
Ventura left at one point, the lawsuit said, but because she was “in his vicious cycle of abuse,” she returned “with the intention of apologizing for running away.”
The suit continued: “When she returned, hotel security staff urged her to get back into a cab and go to her apartment, suggesting that they had seen the security footage
The lawsuit alleged that Diddy paid $50,000 to the hotel for the footage.
