Sean “Diddy” Combs has been under a lot of scrutiny over the past few months as he faces multiple allegations of assault and sex trafficking. One of the lawsuits — which was quickly settled — came from Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, who alleged rape and assault over the course of their relationship. Now hotel security footage from 2016 has come out that appears to show the music producer assaulting Ventura, and after her husband responded to the video, P. Diddy’s former assistant also spoke out about working for the rapper and why there was “not one cell in my body that was surprised.”
Back in 2008, Suzi Siegal competed on and won the VH1 reality show I Want to Work for Diddy, and she reportedly continued to work for him until 2009, during which time he was dating Cassie Ventura. After seeing the hotel video of the alleged assault, Siegal said in an interview with CNN:
I felt sick, and I felt violently angry. And I felt like I’m sure a lot of men and women feel looking at that video that it’s so disturbing, that the video doesn’t lie.
While Suzi Siegal expressed shock over the video — which appears to show P. Diddy chasing Cassie Ventura, then throwing her to the ground and kicking her — the ex-assistant said she never witnessed any mistreatment when she was working for Diddy. Still, Siegal said she wasn’t surprised at what her former employer was allegedly capable of. She continued:
I observed nothing that would lead me to believe or… There was no scuttlebutt about it. I never saw him speak harshly to her or be abusive toward her, anything like that. I rode in the limos with them, I went to parties with them. I guess what I would say is even though I never saw anything that could corroborate what’s in that lawsuit and what we just saw, there was not one cell in my body that was surprised.
Cassie Ventura, who was first linked to Diddy in 2005, filed a lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend in November 2023, accusing him (per NBC News) of punching, beating, kicking and stomping on her. The lawsuit was settled the day after it was filed. Several other accusations followed, with authorities performing raids on his homes in Los Angeles and Miami.
Suzi Siegal reiterated that she’d never witnessed any abuse while working for Sean Combs, but she credited “woman’s intuition” for why the hotel security footage didn’t surprise her. She went on to say:
You know, it’s gonna sound a little bit weird, because I don’t have any facts, right? And nobody’s gonna call me to testify. But I would say that it’s woman’s intuition. I would say that I was around him a lot, and I got a feeling for who he was. I didn’t see anything that could get him in trouble. But I think that the power dynamic in a situation like that, especially [Cassie] at the beginning of her career. [She was] so young and beautiful and talented, and she hooked herself or became involved with somebody who had some much power. And I felt that working for him, I’m sure the whole team felt that. And he’s a mogul, so he’s the big boss. But I think you could imagine — certainly in my interactions with him — you could imagine how that would dissipate and sort of seep into every aspect of his life, especially his relationships.
Suzi Siegal spoke to the power that Puff Daddy had over Cassie Ventura at that time in her life. It wasn’t just their age difference — Cassie was 19 years old in 2005, while Diddy was in his mid-30s — but he was rich, a famous music mogul, and he controlled her career. The former assistant said it was clear to her what he was capable of because of how he treated people. She concluded:
I mean, I think it’s more to do with the way that he treated people. Again, nobody was mistreated that I saw. I didn’t feel mistreated, but it was very clear to me. Again, this is intuition, right? This is what we pick up as women and humans who are smart and have been around. He just didn’t see your humanity when he looked at you. It felt very obvious to me that everyone was just sort of there to be used, that he could get the most out of you.
Diddy has not been charged with crime, nor has he responded to the video. He did, however, in recent days post a cryptic message in a video on social media, in which a voiceover talked about remaining “steady in the storm.”
If you are someone you know is experiencing issues with domestic violence, there is help available. You can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at (800) 799-7233 or visit thehotline.org.