Diddy trial live updates: Justin Bieber weighs in on ‘victim’ claims as celebrities are named in court

To hear all the explosive testimony from singer Cassie Ventura and the other witnesses in Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs’ trial, tune in to Daily Mail’s hit podcast The Trial.

From sworn testimony to video evidence and the rapper’s every subtle move, our team of journalists take you inside the courtroom of the world’s biggest celebrity case.

Daily Mail has been following Diddy’s downfall from the very beginning. Join us as we hear from experts involved in the case, and members of the rapper’s inside circle.

Justin Bieber has broken his silence on explosive rumors connecting him to Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs just days after the disgraced music mogul’s sex trafficking trial began.

Diddy’s attorney Anna resumed her cross examination with questions related to the March 2016 recording of Combs attacking Cassie at the elevator bank of a Los Angeles hotel. In it, Combs can be seen slinging Cassie to the floor, kicking her and dragging her into a hotel hallway.

Estevao had Cassie read aloud a text message in which she complained that Combs was out of control from drugs and alcohol that day.

In the message, Cassie told Combs: ‘I’m not a rag doll. I’m somebody’s child.’

Jurors in the trial of Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs were yesterday shown images from the sex parties that the hip-hop mogul masterminded.

The New York courtroom fell silent as the jury members viewed five still pictures of so-called ‘Freak Offs’ on their screens, which were blocked from public view.

One male juror’s eyebrows went up as he saw the images, while a female juror swallowed hard and appeared to move her head side to side.

On Thursday, Diddy mentioned to his lawyer Anna Estevao that he was ‘proud’ of her for the work she was doing on his case. The message was caught on a hot mic in the courtroom.

Estevao confronted Cassie with loving emails and text messages she and the hip-hop mogul exchanged early on.

‘You and [Sean Combs] were in love for 11 years, right?’ was the first question from Diddy’s lawyer Anna Estevao, who will be cross-examining Cassie.

‘You believed he loved you?’

Estevao continued a line of questioning that emphasized that Cassie ‘knew the real Sean… a version he won’t let the rest of the world see.’

In one particularly damning exhange, Cassie wrote in a text to Diddy in March, 2017: ‘Please don’t play victim.

‘That’s all you wanted and that’s why I was upset.

‘I love our FOs when we both want it.’

Eight men and four women are on the final panel of 12 with a further four men and two women listed as alternates. On the main juror panel, four are white, two are Hispanic, five are black and one is Asian. Of the six alternates, four are white and two are black.

Footage of an interview with Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs and Justin Bieber has gone viral following the rapper’s arrest.

Diddy has been charged with a host of sex trafficking and racketeering offenses with upwards of 120 victims already coming forward.

A video has now resurfaced of Diddy, 54, and Justin, now 30, an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! together when the singer was only 16-years-old.

Cassie has taken the stand Friday to continue being grilled by Diddy’s lawyer Anna Estevao.

She took a breath as she sat down – with Diddy looking at her as she did so.

Cassie appeared calm and appeared to be showing off her bump.

Diddy then turned to face the jury, appearing to be trying make eye contact with one of them.

It follows on from last week when the mogul appeared to attempt eye contact with jurors during jury selection.

Judge Arun Subramanian admonished the defense for continuing to file documents well into the night during the trial.

‘Leters have come in at 3am… I’ve come in early,’ he said on Friday.
‘This is a problem, we’re running out of time to address issues’.

Defense attorney Teny Geragos suggested to the judge Wednesday that they had to change today’s gameplan on the fly.

She told Judge Subramanian that the questioning of Cassie by prosecutors over two days ‘has gone much differently than I expected. … So we are kind of changing our strategy.’

Agnifilo later told the judge that questioning Cassie about infidelities is important. ‘Everybody knows that we are going to bring up infidelities, that we’re going to want to bring up text messages of infidelities, and these text messages are often in colorful language,’ he said.

Diddy’s lawyer Anna Estevao questioned Cassie about addictions as it related to Combs.

‘Would you say he was an addict?’ the defense lawyer asked. ‘I would say he was an addict,’ Cassie responded.

‘What was he addicted to?”’ Estevao asked.

‘Success,’ Cassie initially said.

When the lawyer asked if Combs was addicted to opiates, Cassie said: ‘At a point, yes.’

Estevao asked her how she knows. Cassie answered: ‘Because he told me.’

Cassie said Combs would become more violent when he was going through Opioid withdrawals.

Combs appears relaxed at the defense table, sitting back in his chair with his hands folded before him and his legs crossed.

He has been allowed to wear his own clothes for the trial.

However, he has to rotate between five looks throughout the trial, which is expected to last about eight weeks.

He can only have up to five pairs of pants, shirts and socks and only two pairs of shoes – with no laces.

The mogul’s family, including his mother Janice and six of his seven kids, has supported him since his arrest last year and have been present in the courtroom every day this week.

His three daughters – 18-year-old daughter Chance and 17-year-old twins D’Lila and Jessie – were in court on Monday and Tuesday and heard horrific testimony from the first three witness including Cassie.

However, Diddy’s daughters were not seen going inside the federal courthouse on Wednesday as Cassie is to resume her testimony.

Only Diddy’s mother Janice Combs and sons Quincy, 33, Justin, 30, and Christian, 26, were seen entering court on Wednesday and Thursday.

Judge Subramanian said there had been pre-trial discussions for months about the need to finish Cassie’s testimony this week, given her advanced pregnancy.

Agnifilo tried to blame prosecutors, saying it ‘seems strategic’ that they called two other witnesses before Cassie, and suggesting they did so in an effort to limit the cross examination.

The judge told the defense to finish its cross in the morning Friday to leave time for prosecutors to ask Cassie followup questions. He left open the possibility that Cassie might have to return to the witness stand next week.

Cassie wrote in a text to Diddy in March, 2017: ‘Please don’t play victim.

‘That’s all you wanted and that’s why I was upset.

‘I love our FOs when we both want it.’

Diddy’s attorney has been trying to prove that, despite her claims, Cassie was not coerced into participating in the grueling sex sessions.

When asked about what she wrote, Cassie replied: ‘I would say that loving FOs were just words at that point.’

The decision to have Combs testify would be made after the government finishes presenting its case weeks from now.

And ultimately, it will be up to Combs to decide.

In most criminal trials, defendants choose not to testify. With a celebrity, the decision whether to take the stand can be complicated and risky, especially if lawyers believe prosecutors failed to prove their case.

Diddy suspected Cassie was having a revenge affair with the actor Michael B. Jordan, the court heard.

Cassie said she dumped the hip hop mogul in 2015 after seeing a video of him and a woman called Gina at an event while she was in South Africa filming ‘Honey 3: Dare to Dance’.

She told a court in New York that Diddy suspected she got together with Jordan, who was in Cape Town at the same time while doing filming of his own.

Cassie said she ‘wasn’t there’ to see how Combs reacted when he found out about her relationship with Jordan.

Cassie and Diddy eventually patched things up and stayed together until 2018.

The singer did not say she had an affair with the actor while on the stand, but she did reveal the romance in her 2023 civil lawsuit against the mogul.

Cassie said that she began a ‘flirtatious relationship’ with Jordan while she was in South Africa – and that they did have an affair.

‘She spent New Year’s Eve with this actor but Mr Combs soon found out’, the lawsuit stated.

‘Mr. Combs called the actor and threatened him; the actor proceeded to call Ms. Ventura and tell her: ‘You really need to call ‘Mr Combs’.

Just a year after she was last seen with Diddy, Cassie married Alex Fine, who was originally Diddy’s personal trainer.

Cassie became pregnant soon after she started dating Fine.

The couple is currently expecting their third child, which means Cassie has been testifying as she is just weeks away from giving birth.

Cassie is on her way to a Manhattan federal courthouse to continue her testimony against Diddy on Friday.

Her lawyers have said she must finish her testimony today because she is near the end of her third pregnancy and due to give birth soon.

As Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs faces charges of sex-trafficking in Manhattan federal court, his relationship with the singer Cassie is at the center of the horrific allegations.

The music mogul’s staggering downfall began when Cassie, real name Casandra Ventura, filed a bombshell lawsuit in 2023 detailing terrifying claims of sexual abuse and violence.

The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount just a day after it was filed, but it was too late for Diddy’s reputation, and the rapper was then hit with dozens of lawsuits including similar claims.

Diddy’s defense attorney questioned Cassie about a time when the rapper overdosed in February, 2012, after taking painkillers.

‘Was that around the time Whitney Houston died?’ Cassie asked Diddy’s attorney.

Yes… We had a Freak Off. We went to a sex club in San Bernardino. He had a party at the Playboy Mansion that night and I went home.

He took a very strong opioid that night, we didn’t know what was happening so took him to the hospital.

Whitney Houston died on February 11, 2012, in an accidental drowning after taking cocaine.

It’s unclear why the defense brought up her death.

Houston and Diddy are seen in 2010.