Alert – Diddy trial live: Disturbing new photos show Cassie’s horrific injuries after infamous hotel corridor beating

‘That’s me, a selfie of me with a fat lip,’ the singer replied when asked about a photo entered as evidence last week.

The image, taken after Diddy assaulted Cassie in the hallway of an LA hotel, was released to the public on Monday.

Cassie said she took it while on an Uber on her way home following the filmed 2016 assault.

She said she texted Diddy saying: ‘I have a premiere for the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life on Monday. You are sick for thinking it’s OK to do what you’ve done. Please stay away from me.’

The rapper reportedly then claimed he was getting arrested.

Cassie said her then-best friend, model Kerry Morgan, became upset when she saw her face and called police.

Cassie said she chose to not report who had assaulted her when police showed up because she wanted to protect Diddy.

‘In in that moment I didn’t want to hurt him that way. Just too much going on. A lot for me in that moment. I wasn’t ready.’

To hear all the explosive testimony from singer Cassie Ventura and the other witnesses in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ trial, tune in to Daily Mail’s hit podcast The Trial.

From sworn testimony to video evidence and the rapper’s every subtle move, our team of journalists take you inside the courtroom of the world’s biggest celebrity case.

Daily Mail has been following Diddy’s downfall from the very beginning. Join us as we hear from experts involved in the case, and members of the rapper’s inside circle.

Diddy’s former assistant David James told the court he applied to work for the mogul because he wanted a career in fashion.

James was emotional, crying, as he described his first days working for Diddy.

He said one of the executives at DBad Boy Entertainment told him his job was to please the mogul.

‘I remember sitting at her desk and there was a picture of Mr Combs on the wall,’ James told the court Monday.

‘She pointed at the wall and said this is Mr Combs kingdom. We’re all here to serve him.’

Cassie named David James as one of the assistants who facilitated the alleged Freak Offs.

James worked as a personal assistant for Diddy from May 2007 to May 2009, the court heard on Monday.

‘She was not supportive of me after Sean assaulted me,’ Morgan told the court about the time Diddy allegedly threw a wooden hanger at her head, causing a concussion.

Diddy paid Morgan $30,000 following the alleged assault at Cassie’s house in 2018.

Morgan said Cassie told her she was ‘milking’ the incident, and asked her to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

‘I draw my line at physical abuse…so has also not reached out to me,’ Morgan said of why they have not rekindled their friendship.

Cassie said she dumped the hip hop mogul in 2015 after seeing a video of him and a woman called Gina at an event while she was in South Africa filming ‘Honey 3: Dare to Dance’.

Her former best friend told the court on Monday that Gina ‘was a big problem’ for Cassie.

She was a big problem. She wouldn’t go away. He was having a full on relationship with this little girl. Cassie found out about it. It went on for a really long time.

I’m pretty sure she got pregnant… that Gina girl.

Cassie testified that she broke up with Diddy for good in August 2018 after she saw a photo of him with another woman he’d been dating for the last few years of their decade-long relationship.

‘I just don’t trust anymore. That last shot put the nail in the coffin,’ Casse texted Combs, referring to the photo of Combs with a woman identified in court as Gina.

‘I promised myself I wouldn’t be with you anymore if you did that to me again,’ Cassie wrote, telling Combs ‘you lied to me’ and ‘she never went away.’

Gina Huynh, who says she dated the music executive for five years, described in a resurfaced interview from 2019 a time at which he allegedly became violent with her.

The model told the controversial blogger Tasha K that he allegedly ‘stomped’ on her stomach and repeatedly punched her in the head during one disturbing encounter.

Special Agent Yasin Binda began her testimony by saying she works for Homeland Security Investigations’ human trafficking division.

Binda participated in searches related to the Combs investigation and was involved in coordinating logistics for his arrest last September at a Manhattan hotel.

She was one of the agents who arrested Diddy in New York last year.

She told the court that police found ‘mood lighting,’ baby oil and drugs including ketamine and MDMA in his room.

‘This is one zip lock bag filled with Johnson’s baby oil and you see another zip lock bag filled with Astroglide that was in the hallway closet,’ she said of what she found in Diddy’s room at the Park Hyde hotel on September 16, 2024.

Diddy had been in New York for 11 days before his arrest and prosecutors said he was ‘waiting potentially for his arrest.’

The mogul looked stress as agent Binda spoke and put his hand on the back of his head.

Cassie told the court last week that she first had sex with Diddy during a trip to Miami shortly after he kissed her at her 21st birthday party in Las Vegas.

She said the mogul gave her ecstasy – and it was the first time she tried the drug.

Cassie said eventually taking drugs became a common occurence as she engaged in the Freak Offs to please Diddy.

Cassie told the court last week that, while she was packing to go to Drake’s music festival in Canada, Diddy scuffled with her friends and threw her into a bed frame.

Cassie said she suffered a ‘pretty significant gash’ above her left eye. Diddy’s security personnel brought her to a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills to get the wound stitched up.

Afterward, she texted Diddy a photo of her injured face and wrote: ‘So you can remember.’

Diddy replied: ‘You don’t know when to stop. You pushed it too far. And continued to push. Sad.’

Cassie then described a photo of her where she is with rapper French Montana at the festival in Canada.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs blew a kiss to his mom and made a heart with his hands as she led his family into the courtroom to support him in his racketeering and sex trafficking trial.

The disgraced music mogul’s criminal trial kicked off in Manhattan’s federal court on Monday, eight months after he was first arrested and hit with a host of charges.

His family, led by his mom Janice, have been steadfast in their support of the 55-year-old.

Cassie told the court she left the ‘freak off’ after it became violent and she didn’t want to have bruises at her first big movie premiere two days later.

‘It got violent and I chose to leave… I had my premiere, I didn’t want to mess it up, so I left,’ she said.

She waiting until Diddy was in the shower, grabbed her belongings, and ran away barefoot as fast as she could – he caught up to her.

‘Sean followed me into the hallway by the elevators. He grabbed me up, threw me on the ground, kicked me, tried to drag me back to the room, took my stuff,’ she said, describing the attack in the infamous video.

Johnson asked Ventura how many times Diddy threw her to the ground like the jury saw in the video.

‘Too many to count. I don’t know,’ she said.

Ventura said she never tried to fight back when Diddy hit her.

Cassie Ventura’s emotional testimony this week included sordid details of more than a dozen porn stars and male escorts she was allegedly forced to have unprotected sex with as her ex, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, watched.

Now, DailyMail can reveal the men she was talking about.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs longtime rival Suge Knight sensationally warned that President Donald Trump would pardon the disgraced music executive if he’s convicted of sex trafficking and racketeering.

The imprisoned co-founder of Death Row Records made the bombshell allegations on Wednesday, hours after Diddy’s ex Cassie Ventura addressed the duo’s feud during her testimony in his criminal trial.

Unlike other high-profile cases, the rapper’s trial will not be televised as it is in federal court.

Electronic media, including cameras, are banned in the Manhattan court room.

A sketch artist’s work will be the only visuals coming out of the courtroom.

Kerry Morgan told the court that she sometimes encouraged Cassie to leave Diddy, but Cassie said she ‘couldn’t because of her job, her car, her apartment…

‘He controlled everything. She would have lost all of her livelihood.’

Morgan added that Diddy’s circle seemed to convince Cassie to stay with him.

‘She didn’t want to leave him after she would see some people – you could tell they were convincing

her it was ok,’ Morgan said.

‘One was April, D Rock’s wife.’

D-Rock was a member of Diddy’s inner cicrcle and was known for being close to The Notorious B.I.G.

Morgan is seen on Monday.

Morgan told the court about a terrifying incident she allegedly experienced while in Jamaica with Diddy and Cassie in 2013.

‘I was originally in the bar and I heard Cassie screaming so I ran to the hallway,’ the former model said on Monday.

‘Cassie had gone to the bathroom. After a few minutes Sean said, “she’s taking too long,” so he left me [alone]. A few minutes later I heard her screaming like guttural, terrifying.

‘I went to the hallway… they were coming out of the master bedroom and he was dragging her by her hair.’

Morgan said eventually Diddy ‘pushed Cassie on the ground and she hit her head on a brick.’

‘She didn’t move. She fell on her side, her hands were out, a loose fetal position,’ Morgan explained.

‘I thought she was knocked out… [she didn’t move for] 20, 30 seconds.’

Kerry Morgan, Cassie Ventura’s best friend, has emerged as a crucial figure in the trial of Sean 'Diddy' Combs. 

Morgan, 39, who is set to take the stand Monday, was mentioned by Ventura last week during her testimony.

The R&B singer told the court that her ex-boyfriend threw a wooden hanger at her then best friend, giving her a concussion.

During her testimony, Cassie mentioned several of Diddy’s employees and allies, including his ‘trusted assistants’ Kristina Khoram and Neil Dominic.

Khoram was previously named by others as a ‘fixer’, who allegedly helped Diddy set up the infamous freak offs.

‘Everything from scheduling to what kind of mood he was in,’ Cassie said when asked what she discussed with Khoram. ‘I talked to [Khoram] about a lot. She knew a lot of my personal things.’

Cassie also claimed Diddy’s security guard, R. Rock ‘used to take away her things as punishment’ on the mogul’s direction. She also said the guard would come find her when she tried to hide from Diddy.

‘[I’d] get my car taken away, get kicked out of an apartment, I’d have jewerly taken away… It was very random depending on how [Diddy] felt.’

She also mentioned other security guards for Diddy, including Roger Bonds, Uncle Paulie, Faheem and Malik.

Kristina Khorram – once referred to as ‘the Ghislaine Maxwell to [Diddy’s] Jeffrey Epstein‘ – has not been accused of any wrongdoing or charged with any crimes. However, several ‘high ranking supervisors’ are mentioned, but not named, in a criminal indictment against the rapper.

Read the full story below:

Morgan, 39, has taken the stand for the prosecution.

When asked, she said she was testifying because she was subpoenaed, as she has ‘moved on with her life.’

Cassie testified last week that she once considered Morgan her best friend but their friendship took a turn after an alleged violent incident involving the music mogul in 2018.

Cassie said in her lawsuit they were ‘inseperable’ until Diddy hit Morgan with a hanger, causing a concussion.

Diddy and Kerry eventually settled out of court, with Cassie claiming the rapper also paid Kerry additional cash to ‘smooth things over.’

Below, the former best friends are pictured in 2007.

Despite his lawyer Nicole Westmoreland cornering Dawn Richard, Diddy appeared unsatisfied with her cross examination.

In a conversation with his lawyer Marc Agnifilo which was caught on a hot mic, Diddy appeared to be suggesting that it should have gone differently

Angifilo could be heard saying that Westmoreland had prepared for the cross examination extensively and that ‘I heard her (Richard) say her story changed’.

Diddy listened, saying ‘uh uh’ repeatedly but then asked: ‘Why didn’t they play the interview?’

It was unclear which interview he was referring to, however, Richard has spoken out numerous times about her experiences with Diddy.

Kerry Morgan came up during Cassie’s testimony as she described their former friendship.

Morgan, a model, was Cassie’s best friend when she started dating Diddy, in 2007.

Cassie has claimed her friendship with Morgan became irreparably strained after Diddy assaulted her in 2018.

Cassie’s lawsuit said: ‘The incident resulted in a settlement between Mr. Combs and Ms. Morgan, and Ms. Ventura ended up paying Ms. Morgan additional funds in an attempt to resolve the dispute between her close friend and her abusive and controlling boyfriend. The relationship between Ms. Ventura and Ms. Morgan has been strained since this time.’

In a motion for withdraw of counsel filed in New York in February, Ricco said ‘under no circumstances can I continue to effectively serve as counsel for Sean Combs’.

The notice added that discussions had been had with lead counsel Marc Agnifilo and Ricco before the motion was filed.

Ricco said that he would be providing no details to support the application, adding that government prosecutors had been notified and didn’t take a stance.

Richard said on the stand Monday that Diddy punched Cassie in the stomach during a private argument at a West Hollywood restaurant in 2010.

She claimed several celebrities were at the dinner, including Usher, Ne-Yo and superstar music executive Jimmy Iodine.

‘Mr Combs punched Cassie in the stomach,’ Richard told the jury.

‘They were having a private conversation, we were all sitting eating at the tables together. Some of Bad Boy label mates, some celebrities were in the room.

‘They were secretly arguing [and] he punched her in the stomach.

Richard added: ‘[Cassie] immediately bent over nad he told her to leave, I could see him point out and she went out.’

Diddy hired Nicole Westmoreland as the eigth lawyer on his defense team just days before his trial started earlier this month.

Westmoreland revealed she was raped in 2001 when she was just 19 years old.

She said a man named Alfred Cleveland raped her at Patchwerk Recording Studio in Atlanta, as reported by TMZ.

Westmoreland has taken a confrontational tone as she pokes holes in Dan Richard’s claims on Monday.

She is seen arriving to court.

Sx of seven of Diddy’s kids showed up to court last week, but none were present on Monday as Dwn Richard continued her testimony.

The mogul’s sons three sons endured all of the harrowing testimony by Cassie last week, but his twins girls and eldest daughter Chance stopped attending mid-week.

Twins Jessie and D’Lila put their father’s legal woes aside for the evening as they danced the night away in matching dresses for their high school prom night.

It’s not clear why Diddy’s sons did not show up to court on Monday as they did throughout last week.

Diddy’s attorney Nicole Westmoreland is speaking in a loud, clear voice as she cross-examines Dawn Richard, who is speaking in a soft voice – almost a whisper at times.

Westmoreland is arguing that Richard has changed details about her claims in different interviews.

At one point the attorney asked her to ‘Please speak louder.’

While the defense used a soft and firnedly tone while questioning a pregnant Cassie, they apper to be taking a different approach with Richard.

Diddy has kept his gaze on Westmoreland as she questions his former protege.

Dawn Richards testifies on Monday as the jury views an exhibit image showing her with Cassie after she was allegedly assaulted by Diddy.

On Monday, Richard testified that the following day Diddy called her and Kalenna Harper into the studio – Harper had been present at the time – locked the door and threatened their lives if they spoke out.

Richard said Diddy told her: ‘The incident was a passion and Cassie was OK and that if we said anything we could go missing’.

Asked what Diddy meant by that, Richard said: ‘That we could die’.

With a pause, Richard added: ‘I didn’t react at all. I was shocked but also scared because it was our first time starting to record and my first time being in a group with everybody’.

Prosecutor Mitzi Steiner asked about other incident where Diddy was violent.

Richard said that she would ‘frequently’ see incidents of violence.

Misa Hylton, who shares a son with Diddy, has revealed why she is attending the mogul’s trial in New York.

She said on instagram that she decided to be in the federal courtroom to support her son Justin, 31, who has remained supportive of Diddy.

‘Yes, I’m good everyone. I’m on my healing journey,’ Hylton wrote.

‘When I suffered my injury I had chosen to heal privately,” the celebrity stylist continued, ‘but when my son said, ‘Mommy, I need you,’ I was right there for him walker and all.’

She added: ‘Whoever doesn’t understand that just simply isn’t in alignment with me or anything that I’m about in life. I’m cool with that,’ she added, in part.

‘I have a purpose-filled life that I live daily. I make impact. I’m not concerned with insecure people attempting to project their insecurities on to me. EVER.’

Hylton was Diddy’s first public relationship, in the 1990s.

‘He would punch her, choke her,drag her, slap her in the mouth,’ Richard testified on Monday. ‘I saw him kick her… Punch her in the stomach.’

When asked by the prosecution what prompted Diddy’s alleged outbursts, Richard replied: ‘It varied.

It could be Cassie speaking up for herself, it could be random, we wouldn’t even know where it came from, if she wanted to perform or had an opinion about something.

Cassie’s quiet, she had a quiet demeanour, she was soft. When she’d have these moment of tyring to be stick up for herself, and he wasn’t having (it), he would hurt her for it.

Among the injuries that Richard saw on Ventura’s body were blows to her face, lips, eyes arms and knees which she tried to cover up with makeup, clothing and sunglasses.

Defense lawyers, during their cross-examination of Cassie, sought to cast the musician as an enthusiastic participant in the sex marathons.

‘I’m always ready to freak off,’ she wrote in one 2009 message read in court.

Later that year, however, Cassie expressed frustration with the state of their relationship and told Combs she needed something more from him than sex.

In a 2017 text message, Cassie told Combs: ‘I love our FOs when we both want it,’ using the initials of freak-off. On the stand, Cassie explained: ‘I would say loving FOs were just words at that point.’

The first week of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ sex trafficking trial saw a litany of bombshell claims and evidence unveiled before the Manhattan courtroom in New York.

R&B singer Cassandra ‘Cassie’ Ventura delivered horrifyingly graphic testimonies alleging that the music mogul physically and psychologically abused her over more than a decade from 2007-2018.

The 38-year-old detailed the regular beatings she allegedly experienced, the rapper’s use of blackmail and scare tactics to coerce and manipulate, depraved sex acts she claims she was forced to participate in – and the medical toll she suffered as a result.

A male escort allegedly hired by Combs to engage in a variety of sexual acts with Ventura during his notorious ‘freak off’ parties also took the stand to explain how ‘Diddy’ purportedly pushed Ventura into unprotected sex with strangers and orchestrated various sexual encounters for his own pleasure.

In response, lawyers for Combs sought to portray Ventura as a willing and eager participant in the music mogul’s sexual lifestyle. His defence says that, while he is guilty of domestic violence, nothing he did amounted to a criminal enterprise.

Richard detailed the alleged assault she witnessed at Diddy’s home in 2009, when she was there for a recording session along with Colena Harper.

Cassie Ventura was in the kitchen cooking eggs for breakfast when Diddy stormed downstairs into the room.

‘He came downstairs angry and was saying where the f**k was his eggs… He was telling Cassie she never does anything right,’ she told the court.

‘She took the skillet and tried to hit her over the head with it and she fell to the ground.’

Richard explained that Diddy didn’t make full contact with Ventura’s head when he swung the skillet as she anticipated the blow and fell to the floor as she was struck.

‘She went into the fetal position. She was trying to hide her face or her head,’ she said.

‘It seemed like she was doing it as if there was something she did often.’

Richard said Diddy then started to punch and kick Ventura in her head and body as she lay on the floor, not fighting back.

‘He proceeded to take his arm around her neck and his arm in her hair and dragged her upstairs to the first floor,’ she said.

Richard said she didn’t call the police because she was terrified.

‘I’d never seen anything like that before and didn’t know what that would mean. I was scared of what that might mean for myself,’ she said.

‘He was punching his girlfriend… I was scared I might get worse.’

Casie’s lawyer Doug Wigdor shared a statement from her after her testimony concluded on Friday.

This week has been extremely challenging, but also remarkably empowering and healing for me. I hope that my testimony has given strength and a voice to other survivors, and can help others who have suffered to speak up and also heal from the abuse and fear.

For me, the more I heal, the more I can remember. And the more I can remember, the more I will never forget. I want to thank my family and my advocates for their unwavering support, and I’m grateful for all the kindness and encouragement that I have received.

I’m glad to put this chapter of my life to rest. As I turn to focus on the conclusion of my pregnancy, I ask for privacy for me and for my growing family.

Richard claims the disgraced Bad Boy mogul sexually assaulted her, deprived her of food and sleep and refused to pay her adequately. Her case is among dozens of claims filed against Combs in various states.

However her claims are not part of the federal against him, and she will only be testifying as a witness of Diddy’s alleged abuse againt Cassie.

Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo objected to the next witness in Diddy’s trial, former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard.

Prosecutors say her testimony is relevant because she witnessed Diddy being violent towards Cassie.

Defense lawyer Teny Geragos took a novel approach to defending Combs in her opening statement.

She conceded the hip-hop impresario has a ‘bad temper’ and is prone to violent outbursts that are often fueled by alcohol, jealousy and drugs.

But she maintained that while his actions might have warranted domestic violence charges, they aren’t proof he engaged in sex trafficking and racketeering — the charges he faces.

Geragos argued that Combs’ sexual habits were part of a swinger lifestyle involving consenting adults and reminded jurors that “kinky” sexual predilections don’t equate to sex trafficking.

‘Sean Combs is a complicated man. But this is not a complicated case,’ she said. ‘This case is about love, jealousy, infidelity and money.’

Judge Arun Subramanian provisionally denied a joint application by news outlets for the videos to be played in open court and be described by the media.

He agreed with a prosecution argument that playing them would ‘revictimize’ Ventura and one of the unnamed female victims who will testify later iun the trial.

The judge also denied an alternative proposal to allow three pool reporters to stay in court when they were played, and share reports with other outlets.

“I’m not seeing any case that would suggest in any way, shape, or form that images or videos of these types of acts that are alleged to be sexual abuse would be required to be shown in open court when they pose the obvious risk of revictimization,’ he said.

Robert Balin, the lawyer who argued on behalf of the press, earlier said the First Amendment was ‘at its zenith’ in the case.

He argued it was important ‘people, though the press, be able to see justice is being done’.

Balin said the best evidence of whether the sex acts in the ‘freak offs’ were coerced – which underpinned the prosecution’s case – were the videos themselves.

The application was only ever to view the videos and describe them, not for the footage to ever become public.

Former Danity Kane member Dawn Richards testified about what Diddy did after allegedly beating then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura.

‘He brought us into the recording studio and locked the door,’ she told the court.

‘He said that what we saw was passion and what lovers in relationships do. He said she was OK and it would be in our best interest if we didn’t say anything.

‘He said he’s trying to take us to the top. [He said] where he comes from people go missing if they talk, and then he gave us flowers.’

Richards said she understood Diddy’s comment about people going missing meant ‘that people could die’.

Sean Combs raises his hands as he is pointed out by Dawn Richard on Friday.

Cassie said she expects to receive a $10 million settlement from the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles, where she was assaulted by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs in 2016.

Security camera footage aired last year on CNN shows the hip-hop mogul hitting and kicking Cassie, knocking her to the floor as she attempted to leave a ‘freak off’ sexual encounter at the hotel.

Cassie revealed the figure during questioning by Combs’ lawyer in a phase of her testimony known as re-cross. She said the figure was an estimate and that the settlement was reached recently. She didn’t disclose the nature of her claim against the hotel.

Justin Bieber broke his silence on explosive rumors connecting him to Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs just days after the disgraced music mogul’s sex trafficking trial began.

Last year, a video of the pair resurfaced which some fans labeled as 'disturbing' and showed Combs and Justin – who was a minor at the time – hanging out for ’48 hours.’ The pair also worked together on an album.

‘Although Justin is not among Sean Combs’ victims, there are individuals who were genuinely harmed by him. Shifting focus away from this reality detracts from the justice these victims rightfully deserve,’ his spokesperson said in a statement to TMZ.

PR expert Chad Teixeira told The U.S. Sun that Bieber chose to speak out as a publicity move.

‘The allegations against Diddy have reached critical mass. Bieber knows that if he doesn’t speak now, the narrative will be written without him and probably not in his favor,’ Teixera said.

‘This is a moment of calculated authenticity.’

Bieber wanted to make sure he is not seen as a bystander but rather a ‘symbol of survival and allyship,’ per the expert.

O’Day, a former member of the Diddy-created group Danity Kane, said on the Amy Robach & TJ Holmes podcast that the rapper was ‘selfish’ for allowing his kids to attend his trial.

Six of Combs’ seven children; Quincy, 33, Justin, 31, Christian, 27, Chance 19, and 18-year-old twins Jessie and D’Lila, have been stoically trying to listen to the graphic descriptions of their father’s alleged sexual fetishes.

His youngest child, Love, is two-and-a half.

‘The fact that the kids are marching up to that court,’ she said on the podcast.

‘I don’t know any father that would want their children to sit through [that kind of] testimony.’