NEW YORK - Sean "Diddy" Combs's former partner Casandra Ventura testified that the music mogul raped her near the end of their decade-plus relationship that included routine physical abuse and left her with post-traumatic stress and suicidal thoughts.
Ventura, the singer widely known as "Cassie," returned to the witness stand in the sex trafficking trial against her ex for another marathon day of questioning from prosecutors who accuse Combs of heading a criminal sex ring.
The hours of questioning finished with Ventura, who is eight months pregnant with her third child, in tears as she recounted "horrible flashbacks" of her time with Combs -- they stopped seeing each other in 2018 -- that left her telling her husband years later that she was contemplating suicide.
"I didn't want to be alive anymore at that point," she told the courtroom.
"I couldn't take the pain that I was in anymore," the emotional Ventura said, adding that her husband, celebrity fitness trainer Alex Fine, stopped her from any action.
The 2023 episode prompted her to seek professional rehabilitation help.
Over two days of testimony, Ventura described Combs as controlling and willing to wield his wealth and influence to fulfil his desires.
Ventura, now 38, gave vivid accounts of coercive sex parties and violent beatings that will underpin much of the prosecution's case against the music industry figure, who is alleged to have used violence and blackmail to manipulate women over many years.
Combs subsequently threatened to release videos of her participating in his sex parties as retaliation, she said.
Ventura recounted so-called "freak-off" sex parties, saying she participated because she was "just in love and wanted to make (Combs) happy -- to a point I didn't feel like I had much of a choice."
Ventura, who is 17 years younger than Combs and first met him when she was 19, described how the mogul would sometimes urinate on her, or he would instruct one of the numerous sex workers he engaged to participate in the freak-offs to do so.
Ventura will return to the stand Thursday for what's expected to be a dramatic cross-examination from defence lawyers for Combs, who vehemently denies all charges.
Combs's defense team insists while some of his behaviour was questionable, it did not constitute racketeering and sex trafficking. He denies all counts.