The iron grip Sean “Diddy” Combs allegedly had on his assistant for nearly a decade was detailed as the longtime staffer testified at his federal trial for a second day about working for him, walking on eggshells and trying to please him amid his multiple alleged instances of sexual assault and being suspended from the job she said became her entire world as she worked around the clock without sleeping for days.
The assistant is using the pseudonym “Mia,” as she has testified from the stand that she was repeatedly assaulted and forced into sex acts by Combs over the years she worked as his dedicated right-hand woman, from 2009 to 2017. On Thursday, she revealed details about the assaults; on Friday’s cross-examination, defense attorney Brian Steel grilled Mia, questioning why she would still work for Combs and often go beyond the responsibilities of her job, creating homemade news archive scrapbooks and video shout-out compilations of his inner circle as birthday gifts.
“I’m a very loving person,” Mia told Steel from the witness stand, to which he quickly replied, “To your rapist? To the man who sexually assaulted you?”
According to Mia, the first time Combs sexually assaulted her was a few months into her employment when they were at the Plaza Hotel in New York. It was around this time that Combs met 19-year-old singer and soon-to-be-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and signed her to a 10-album deal with his Bad Boy Records.
Therapy has been a part of Mia’s recovery from post-traumatic stress of her time working for the defendant, which was defined by hot and cold treatment, dangling her job security as a means of control, and verbal abuse. She was finally fired in 2016, jettisoned from Combs’ world after eight years by his side. At the time she was axed, Mia was working for the mogul’s film imprint, Revolt Films, on a documentary looking at the history of Bad Boy Records. Combs, she told the court, didn’t even tell her directly that she was being let go. Revolt Films was shutting down, she said she was told by another executive.
“Out of the blue, he just said ‘I hate to tell you this but I talked to Mr. Combs and he no longer wants to be involved with film, so he basically wants to end Revolt Films,’” Mia told the court.
She described the devastation she felt as the rug was pulled and the only world she knew was suddenly pulled away. The jury saw texts she exchanged with Combs’ chief of staff Kristina “KK” Khorram, where she texted about contemplating suicide after “the worst thing in the world” had happened. She told Steel that her job with Combs was the only life she knew back then.
“I didn’t want to leave the company that I’d built when I actually started to see my dreams come to fruition,” she said.
The defense’s strategy in cross-examining “Mia” was to discredit her allegations of sexual assault and reduce the impact of the alleged abuse she described over the past two days by showing moments where she was kind and friendly with Combs, particularly around his birthdays. Steel asked Mia how she could post to social media about someone who’d assaulted her’s birthday; she replied that as his assistant, she was expected to post for Combs’ birthday while she was working for him.
At one point in the cross-examination, Steel asked Mia, point blank, “Mr. Combs never had unwanted nonconsensual forcible sexual contact with you, Isn’t that true?”
Mia replied, “What I said in this courtroom is true. I have not lied to anyone at all.”
After she was fired, Mia hired an attorney and sought out severance. Nine months of back-and-forth led to her receiving $400,000; she took home $200,000 after attorneys’ fees, she testified.
The cross-examination will continue when the trial resumes on Monday.
On Friday, President Trump weighed in on Combs’ fate and a potential pardon, saying that he will “look at the facts” if the fallen mogul is found guilty. Trump added that he hasn’t seen or spoken to Combs in the years since he launched his political career.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
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