Sean “Diddy” Combs’ former assistant said she was not surprised when video surfaced this week showing the rapper violently beating his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a hotel.
Suzi Siegi, who was the music mogul’s assistant from 2008 and 2009 when he and Ventura began dating, told CNN that “there was not one cell in my body that was surprised” by the disturbing 2016 clip.
“I felt sick and I felt violently angry,” she said she felt after watching the video. “It’s so disturbing that the video doesn’t lie.”
Siegel said she spent a lot of time in limos and at parties with the couple while employed as Combs’ assistant, but “never saw him speak harshly to her or be abusive or anything like that.”
“I was around him a lot and I got a feeling for who he was,” she continued. “I didn’t see anything that could get him in trouble but I think that the power dynamic in a situation like that, especially at the beginning of her career,” she said.
Combs was 37 and Ventura was 19 when they started their on-again, off-again relationship. Ventura was signed with Combs’ label, and their business connections lasted through 2019.
“Imagine how that would be. And then he’s rich. And not only is he rich he controls you career,” Siegel said.
She said it was her “women’s intuition” that led her to believe Combs was capable of violence, as well as they way he interacted with the people around him.
“Nobody was mistreated that I saw, I didn’t feel mistreated, but it was very clear to me, again, this is intuition … he just didn’t see your humanity when he looked at you,” she said.
The security footage showed Ventura, barefoot, fleeing Combs’ room at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles and trying to get on an elevator. Combs then marches toward her in a towel, grabs her by the neck and slams her to the ground.
Footage showed him kicking her, dragging her by her sweatshirt and throwing things at her while she was lying on the hallway floor.
The beatdown corroborates allegations outlined in a since-settled lawsuit filed by Ventura. In the filing, Ventura claims that Combs paid the hotel $50,000 for the security footage. The suit was settled one day after filing.
The Los Angeles District Attorneys Office said it cannot prosecute Combs based on the video since it happened beyond the state’s statute of limitations for simple and felony assault.
Since November Combs has been slapped with five other lawsuits accusing him of rape, sexual misconduct and other crimes.
Then In April, federal agents dramatically raided his California and Florida mansions as part of an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security team that deals with human trafficking.
He has not been charged with any crimes and has denied the allegations against him.
