Rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs issued an “apology” video on social media after hotel security footage showed him beating and kicking his ex, singer Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, in a hotel hallway in 2016.
The video attack is mentioned in Ventura’s lawsuit against Combs, filed last year and settled “amicably” a day later, as CrimeOnline reported. According to the lawsuit, Combs paid $50,000 for the video of the March 2016 incident so it wouldn’t be released, but CNN obtained it this week and released it.
The video showed Ventura getting up from the floor and gathering her belongings, including her phone, before Combs returned and shoved her. Then he sat on a chair and threw something from a table at Ventura.
Combs said he was “disgusted then when I did it” and remains “disgusted now” and has sought therapy and rehab to become “a better man.”
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“The issue isn’t that he’s not, you know, saying sorry to the victims. The issue is that he’s… he’s what he’s saying sorry to is to all of the followers,” John Delatorre, Psy.D. told Nancy Grace during Tuesday’s “Crime Stories episode.
“The people that he can gather around him and that will be helpful in insulating him from other attacks that are going to be coming from him. This is still part of the offense cycle.”
Combs denied allegations in Ventura’s lawsuit, which claimed he drugged her and forced her to have sex with other men, as well as the accusations made in five other lawsuits against him.
Meanwhile, federal authorities launched investigations earlier this year on Combs’ homes in California and Florida — in connection with the lawsuits.
Meredith Firetog, an attorney representing women who have sued Combs, said the “apology” was “more about himself than the many people he has hurt,” The Associated Press reported.
“We saw the video of you brutally beating and kicking and dragging Cassie and now, you apologize, now?” Grace added. “Apology not accepted. I’ll see you in court.”
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[Feature Photo: Cassie Ventura, left, and Sean “Diddy” Combs arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story” at the Writers Guild Theater on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)]
