\n<\/p>\n
Her testimony at times contained graphic descriptions of sex acts she said she did not consent to. Lying on the floor, \u201cin a position I could not easily get out of,\u201d she said an escort urinated on her at Mr. Combs\u2019s direction, until, choking, she put up her hands. \u201cEventually Sean saw me, and told him to stop,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ms. Ventura, whose relationship with Mr. Combs\u2019s was intermittent over a period of more than a decade, described falling in love with Mr. Combs and participating in the freak-offs because she wanted to make him happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in love with someone you don\u2019t want to disappoint them,\u201d she testified.<\/p>\n
But as the years passed, she said that, even as he she still sought to please him, she recognized that he had become increasingly abusive, beating her and orchestrating ever more degrading sessions that made her feel like her career was no longer music but performing for Mr. Combs\u2019s sexual satisfaction.<\/p>\n
Mr. Combs\u2019s lawyers have depicted the sexual encounters as consensual and denied there was anything coercive about them. But Ms. Ventura, seeking to explain why she did not end the relationship, described being fearful, not just of Mr. Combs\u2019s anger, but of his power over her career and the fact that he possessed videos of the freak-offs that could be used to blackmail her.<\/p>\n
Ms. Ventura was always expected to be the prosecution\u2019s star witness. Her November 2023 lawsuit accusing Mr. Combs of rape and repeated abuse over their decade-long relationship helped begin the federal investigation that led to his indictment. Questions about her career \u2014 why she released only one album on Mr. Combs\u2019s Bad Boy label, and then largely vanished from the music industry \u2014 and Mr. Combs\u2019s influence on it have long followed her.<\/p>\n
But Ms. Ventura was an even more dramatic figure on the stand than anticipated, testifying while in the third trimester of her latest pregnancy \u2014 so far along that the defense asked the judge to consider having her seated in the witness box before the jury entered so the visibility of her pregnancy would not prejudice the jury against Mr. Combs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n