Early days

In the morning session, the court heard Ventura met Combs in New York City in 2005 when she was a 19-year-old model, and had started recording a few songs. Combs was 17 years her senior and the owner of Bad Boy Records. In early 2006, he signed her to a 10-album deal, only one of which was ever produced.

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In those early days, Ventura described Combs as a charismatic and sympathetic figure who looked out for her following “some rough [musical] performances”. They would socialise in similar circles, seeing each other once a month or every other month at New York nightspots.

The relationship began to turn sexual when Combs kissed her in a hotel bathroom during a trip to Las Vegas in August 2007, Ventura said. The trip coincided with her 21st birthday and the MTV Video Music Awards. Ventura described herself at the time as a new and naive young artist “who just didn’t know the lay of the land”.

She said, after the trip, Combs invited her to hang out at hotels in New York while his apartment was being renovated and introduced her to oral sex. They had intercourse for the first time during a trip to Miami in 2007, where she also voluntarily took ecstasy for the first time.

From then on, Ventura said she became like a “shadow” to Combs. She felt they had begun a monogamous relationship. Over time, she began to see abusive and controlling behaviour. She said he was an “incessant caller” and if she did not return his calls or messages, he would have his security guards and assistants track her down; sometimes showing up at her apartment. She also became aware he was involved with other women.

Ventura followed Combs to Los Angeles, as he wanted to be closer to his children from a previous relationship. She lived separately in apartments typically paid for by Combs, and described having a “stomach in knots moment” when he would sometimes show up unannounced.

Meanwhile, her music career was stagnating. Ventura told the court she recorded hundreds of songs, but a second album never materialised through Combs’ record label. Asked whether she received compensation if an album was not released, she said: “You don’t. You barely received it when they got released.”

The first freak-off

In the afternoon session, Ventura told the court the first “freak-off” she performed for Combs occurred in one of his Los Angeles homes, about two to three months after he first raised the idea with her.

The encounter involved consuming alcohol and ecstasy, Ventura said, while at Combs’ direction she wore tall platform “stripper” shoes, an outfit from a sex store and a masquerade mask. “Every freak-off was directed by Sean,” she told the court.

Ventura said at the time, “I was high, so there wasn’t too much feeling”. Afterwards, she felt dirty and confused, but pleased that Combs was happy and she “did something right”.

A freak-off would typically involve multiple sex sessions with the chosen male escort or multiple male escorts, Ventura told the court. Combs would watch either in the room or from a different room, sometimes using the FaceTime app. Sometimes he would also take part by having Ventura perform oral sex on him at the same time, she said.

Drugs - ecstasy, MDMA, cocaine, ketamine, marijuana and others - helped her to stay awake for the entire freak-off, Ventura told the jury.

She said as the encounters became more frequent - weekly for a number of years - it was impossible to recall them all. “It just felt like it was all I was good for,” she said. “Doing this, it made me feel horrible, it made me feel worthless.”

Ventura said she did not want to participate in the freak-offs, though the court saw messages in which she had indicated to Combs that she did. She said she definitely brought up her real feelings about the encounters to Combs, but “treaded lightly”.

“I just didn’t want anything bad to happen,” Ventura said. She indicated she feared Combs’ violent rages, but also that he might find somebody else to participate in the sexual encounters with escorts. “When you really care about somebody, and you’re in love with them, you don’t want to disappoint them.”

In one email exchange between Ventura and Combs, she hinted at reservations about the freak-offs. Combs responded by calling her “predictable”. “He didn’t really care,” she told the jury.

‘He was directing’

Later in the afternoon, prosecutors asked Ventura about the freak-offs in painstaking detail. She said Combs insisted their bodies were oily and shiny, and the sessions involved large amounts of baby oil - up to 10 large bottles. On one occasion, at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, she said a small blow-up pool was filled with baby oil and lubricant, and she climbed into the pool.

Defence lawyers objected to the length and repetitiveness of some of the prosecution’s questioning. “At this point it’s getting a little cumulative,” one defence attorney said.

Ventura told the jury the freak-offs created a significant amount of mess, including the walls and furniture, and towels soiled with lubricant and oil, and even blood and urine. “I was expected to have freak-offs on my period,” she said.

Combs’ fantasy involved her describing the sexual acts she undertook with the male escorts in detail, Ventura said – something she found awkward and humiliating, though it eventually became “normal”. She described trying to speed the process along because “I just wanted it to be over”.

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The male escort would usually ejaculate on her body, she said. Then, when they were alone together in another room, Combs would ask her to spread it on his chest. If the escort ejaculated without Combs’ permission, they would get paid less, Ventura told the court. “This is his fantasy. He was controlling the whole situation, he was directing.”

When the jury was dismissed for the day, they had been hearing Ventura’s account of a freak-off that took place at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles, in March 2016. Video of Combs assaulting Ventura in the hotel hallway has already been played to the jury (and was published by CNN last year).

In her telling, Combs had already hit her in the hotel room, and she had sustained a black eye. “I knew I had to get out. I just grabbed my stuff and ran out as fast as I could,” she told the jury. When he caught up with her in the elevator foyer, he threw her to the ground.

Asked by prosecutors how many times Combs had thrown her to the ground during their relationship, Ventura said: “Too many to count.”