“Real Time” host Bill Maher’s comments about Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal sex trafficking trial essentially blame his most well-known victim for her abuse. Speaking of Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, an artist who was signed to Combs’ label and was his on-again, off-again girlfriend for 11 years, Maher said on his show Friday that “the rule should be: if you’re being abused, you gotta leave right away.”
The rule should be: if you’re being abused, you gotta leave right away.
Ventura testified last month that the 55-year-old founder of Bad Boy Entertainment forced her to help organize and participate in sordid drug-fueled sex parties that he called “freak offs” and left her with black eyes and busted lips. She was one of the first witnesses prosecutors called as they attempt to prove to a jury that Combs is guilty of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution.
As shocking and as disgusting as Maher’s comment is, he isn’t the only prominent man who’s made it his duty — at some point between her November 2023 lawsuit against Combs and now — to try to pick apart her story.
Hotel surveillance video published by CNN in 2024 that prompted Combs to admit he’d abused Ventura should have ended the skepticism that followed her November 2023 lawsuit that included allegations of such abuse.
But some skeptics simply absorbed that evidence and kept on with comments suggesting prosecutors are overcharging Combs.
After Ventura testified, DJ Vlad said on X that “Diddy is definitely guilty of the domestic violence part. But Cassie was a willing participant in a lot of the other things they’re charging him with and giving her immunity over.” Replying to DJ Vlad, the rapper Boosie replied, “SHE JUST AS GUILTY SHE ENJOYED IT.”
Ventura, who signed a contract with Bad Boy Records when she was 19, said she was 22 and Combs was 39 when he first proposed “freak offs” to her. Despite knowing he had a girlfriend, she testified she initially participated in his sexual requests to make him happy.
“Using Cassie’s youth as a blanket excuse for the choices she made during her decade-long relationship with Diddy is problematic because it removes the necessary element of accountability,” the rapper Willie D wrote in a Facebook post. He described Ventura as a “savvy home-wrecking opportunist” and added, “Yes, Diddy was abusive and should have been punished for it, but let’s not pretend Cassie didn’t cash in after every black eye… with designer bags and tropical getaways.”
Taken together, the comments suggest that Ventura — while being abused — still had full agency and could give her full consent.
In February 2024, after Combs had given Ventura money to settle her lawsuit — but before the hotel surveillance tape had been released or federal investigators had searched Combs’ homes — retired boxer Floyd Mayweather said on a podcast: “My take on it is: it’s not my business. I don’t think it’s right at all and I don’t condone it. Even if that happened to my daughter, I would be hurt but that’s a choice that my daughter made.” Former football player Ryan Clark, a host of that podcast, responded correctly when he said, “we have to be very careful” and said that when women make allegations like Ventura’s, “if those things are true, that wasn’t a decision they made; that’s something that was done to them.”
The comments suggest that Ventura — while being abused — still had full agency and could give her full consent.
In spelling out his new rule that abused women should leave immediately, Maher said, “Now, I completely understand why, in the past, women often did not do that.” But he says things have changed since the #METOO movement, conveniently ignoring that Ventura’s relationship with Combs preceded that movement.
That said, the reason that abuse often kept women trapped in relationships then is the reason abuse often keeps women trapped in relationships now. Besides, multiple people have given testimony in Combs’ trial that suggests fear of crossing him. “At some point I felt I didn’t have much of a choice, I didn’t know what ‘No’ could turn into.” Furthermore, she testified that Combs threatened to release video of those encounters to publicly humiliate her.
Capricorn Clark, a former aide to Combs who testified that Combs once threatened to kill her, said she saw Combs kick Ventura at “100% full force.” A former personal assistant of Combs’ identified only by the pseudonym “Mia” not only testified that Combs’ regularly attacked Ventura, but she also testified that he sexually assaulted her and said that if either she or Ventura did something without his permission, the responses could be “unpredictable and terrifying.”
“There’s nothing here,” Ray J told Piers Morgan in a May 27 interview. “I think they made their point. Whatever they were trying to make, your point is made. Now let Diddy out. Free Diddy!”
It is disappointing that as evidence of Combs’ mistreatment of Ventura has been mounting that so many men with platforms have attempted to minimize the abuse or the effects of the abuse. But it’s not surprising given that we continue to see a similar support for the perpetrator and indifference for the victim after the rapper Tory Lanez shot fellow rapper Meghan Thee Stallion in the foot and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Last month, for example, after the rapper whose legal name is Daystar Peterson was stabbed in prison, Drake shared a petition calling on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to free him.
It is disappointing that so many men have attempted to minimize the abuse or the effects of the abuse. But it's not surprising.
These arguments for Tory Lanez over Megan Thee Stallion and for Diddy over Cassie disregard women’s bodily autonomy and suggest that physical violence inflicted upon women isn’t so serious that it should lead to men being punished.
Some of Combs’ defenders may believe themselves to be merely supporting someone they know through their hardships, but support comes with holding people accountable for their wrongdoing.
“Diddy is a bad dude — really bad,” Maher said before describing him as “a violent sick f---” who deserves to be locked up.
Maher is all about new rules. But a new one for him and other men expressing hurtful misogyny should be that if you acknowledge that a man is sick and violent, you don’t get to question the choices victims under his control made.