In this op-ed, Mags Lesiak, a criminologist specializing in domestic violence, takes on criticism of Cassie Ventura after her testimony in the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial.
When Casandra Ventura was 19, she met 37-year-old Sean “Diddy” Combs, a music mogul who seemed to offer her “unprecedented avenues for success,” according to court filings. Combs signed Ventura, who goes by Cassie professionally, to his label, Bad Boy Records, in 2006, and her debut album was released later that year, court filings indicate. Sometime within that period, Ventura and Combs became romantically involved, making Combs her employer, her label head, her professional future, and her boyfriend. According to several court documents and now to testimony, including Ventura’s own, in Combs’s sex trafficking trial, it was the beginning of a nightmare.
Ventura is one of dozens of individuals who have accused Combs of sexual assault. In fact, in addition to the ongoing federal criminal case, more than 70 civil lawsuits have been filed against him, with a number of accusers claiming they were drugged before being raped or assaulted. (Ventura filed a civil lawsuit against Combs in 2023 that was quickly settled.) Combs has repeatedly denied all allegations against him and pleaded not guilty to all charges in his federal sex trafficking trial. He could face 15 years to life in prison if convicted. Ventura, however, served as the star witness in the criminal trial against Combs, detailing the alleged horrors she faced during their relationship. As many women making accusations against powerful men have experienced, this testimony has subjected Ventura to a host of questions — including criticism for staying in an allegedly abusive relationship.
But to me, it’s clear that this isn’t a story about bad choices. It’s a story about survival in a world that too often mistakes coercion for consent.
I’m a psychological criminologist and doctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who specializes in coercive control, trauma bonding, and how cultural norms shape young women’s emotional vulnerability in relationships. I’ve studied relationships that involve abuse, as Ventura’s allegedly did. Though there can be love involved, often what appears from the outside to be love or consent is a strategy for survival on the victim’s part.
In her testimony during Combs’s criminal trial, Ventura described falling in love with him, saying she believed his “real personality” to be "sweet, attentive.” This aligns with what I've seen in my work in terms of how many perpetrators establish a connection. They often love-bomb, and flatter, building trust through affection and illusion. Once the victim is emotionally attached, the tone begins to shift. Isolation begins. Control tightens. Autonomy erodes. The baseline of being in love can weaken someone’s boundaries, as can power. Combs had both.
When abuse starts, victims often adapt, something I also noticed in Ventura’s testimony. She testified that the alleged “freak offs” — drug-fueled sex encounters that she said he often filmed — “disgusted” and “humiliated” her. When asked why she agreed to participate, Ventura said, "I wanted to make him happy."
From what I’ve seen in my research on survivors, what may appear outwardly as consent from victims can be an attempt to survive or to appease an abuser. Every “choice” becomes strategic: keep the perpetrator calm, stay desirable, avoid triggering possible punishment. And in cases where there’s also an intense power imbalance professionally or otherwise, the survivor may have even fewer options — if leaving involves the possibility of both physical violence as well as career and financial ruin, what choice is it really?
Ventura seemed to say as much in her testimony. At one point, she said she tried to talk to Combs about stopping the freak offs, but backtracked when he seemed to respond dismissively. "I wouldn't want to make him angry, I really didn't want him to be upset or not trust me," she testified about why she reversed course, calling him a “scary person.” Combs, Ventura told the court, ultimately controlled many aspects of her life. "Control was everything — from the way that I looked, to what I was working on that day, who I was speaking to," she testified. "Control was an all around thing to a certain point." Where was there to go?
Within industries that, at times, encourage power imbalances and normalize gatekeeping, women and others trying to break in can be deprived of real choices. (It must be noted that, while data suggests men are most often the perpetrators of domestic violence and sexual abuse, men can of course be victims, too.) What appears voluntary can be the result of constrained conditions. Newcomers are too often asked to trade autonomy for opportunity, and dignity for access. Consent under these conditions becomes a performance — calculated, strategic, seemingly necessary. When the cost of saying no may be exile, poverty, career sabotage, or physical violence, “yes” can no longer be taken at face value. It becomes a survival tactic. In such a context, the illusion of choice serves not the victim — but the system that exploits them.
But power differences and alleged promises of success aside, Ventura, like many other accusers, says she loved Combs. Understanding why someone might love a person who allegedly hurt them isn’t easy. It doesn’t fit into common-sense ideas about relationships, and that confusion can quickly turn into judgment. Outsiders may assume the victim is ‘weak’, ‘co-dependent’, or even ‘choosing’ the abuse. Decades ago, even some therapists described survivors as ‘masochistic’ or ‘addicted to pain’, but more recent research tells a very different story.
In my experience, what’s really happening isn’t typically the survivor being in or acting out of love — it can become about survival. Many abusers use something I call coercive emotional regulation: a way of controlling how the victim feels by switching between cruelty and affection. They break their partner down, then offer comfort. They cause the wound, then pretend to be the healer. This kind of manipulation doesn’t only have the ability to confuse — it can rewire. When a person experiences cycles of harm and affection, their nervous system adapts to survive, not to judge the perpetrator’s behavior. The brain begins to link safety to submission, relief to approval. And what feels like love to the survivor isn’t really love at all. It’s a trauma-coded survival bond, in many cases shaped by isolation, reinforced by hope, and sustained by the cost of leaving.
Ventura testified about feeling like it wouldn’t be safe to leave the relationship. Even beyond Combs’s purported control and the potential career implications she felt she could face if she left the music mogul, she also allegedly experienced physical violence. A now-infamous hotel surveillance video shows what “leaving” might have looked like: the footage seemingly shows Ventura being grabbed, kicked, shoved, and dragged toward Combs’s room. Combs also allegedly turned to the threat of revenge porn: “there were actually blackmail materials,” Ventura testified. “To basically make me feel like, if I didn't do it, that it would be hung over my head—or that these things would become public.” Even the people close to her seemingly weren’t safe. Rapper Kid Cudi (Scott Mescudi) testified that he suspects Combs of blowing up his car while he was dating Ventura during what her lawsuit called a “rough patch” in her relationship with Diddy.
Separation does not always mean freedom — a perpetrator might view it as escalation. Estrangement is a leading predictor of femicide. In the UK, data found that 41% of women killed by a current or former partner in 2018 had been separated or were in the process of separating. Leaving often isn’t safe. It can be the final trigger. So, is it truly a choice if saying no could cost you your life, your career, or put people you love in danger?
We must stop treating survival strategies as evidence of consent. Ventura didn’t consent to any alleged abuse — she adapted to it. According to her testimony and lawsuit, she was groomed, isolated, and dominated. The question we must now ask is not why she stayed so long, but why we allow individuals with power to build cages and call them love the way Ventura suggests Combs did. Like many survivors, she said that she used the tools available to her — silence, compliance, hope, affection — to survive in a system that protected her alleged abuser. Ventura’s story is not rare. It’s just visible now. Countless women live inside similar dynamics, their realities twisted and policed by partners who love just enough to confuse them — and hurt just enough to control them.
