Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Tiffany Red has penned an open letter to Sean “Diddy” Combs backing abuse claims made by his longtime girlfriend, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. Red, who revealed she is the anonymous friend named in the singer’s lawsuit against the Bad Boy Records founder, struck up a friendship with the “Me And U” artist in 2015, Rolling Stone reports.
Red’s letter comes on the heels of Combs’ first public statement addressing the mounting allegations against him and corroborates events outlined in Ventura’s lawsuit. One incident in question allegedly occurred on the singer’s 29th birthday after Cassie wanted to leave.
“You were not happy that she was leaving. I remember your people hovering around us, trying to discourage Cassie from leaving, but we went anyway. You followed us and arrived just a little bit after we did. It was instantly uncomfortable,” Red wrote. “When I walked out of the room, you had her backed into a corner in the hallway outside of the door, and your security surrounded you two as you cursed her out with your hands in her face. She and I briefly made eye contact. I felt helpless.”
The songwriter goes on to detail that Cassie allegedly confided in her that on that night, she was forced to engage in sexual acts at the behest of Combs while being heavily under the influence of both drugs and alcohol.
“She later told me you made her have a ‘Freak Off’ — which Cassie described in her lawsuit as an ‘arrangement’ where you would make her perform
sexual acts with male sex workers — that night,” she continued. Red also alleges that Combs made gregarious sexual advances toward Ventura, who, throughout the evening, explicitly expressed that she did not want to leave with the music icon.“I was terrified for Cassie and completely traumatized,” she said.
Red addressed Combs as a “literal pillar in Black music” while expressing her disappointment in his dangerous “abuse of power” that she claimed “inflicted ongoing harm on countless individuals, including myself, my friends, and my peers.”
While the songwriter acknowledged her fear of coming forward, she felt it necessary to speak out to support Ventura.
“The power imbalance makes it nearly
impossible to fight back and terrifying to speak up,” Red continued. “But despite that, here I am, standing beside my friend. There are moments in life when some of us have to face the hard choice of speaking truth to power or not.”RELATED CONTENT: Diddy Allegedly Forced Cassie To Get Breast Implants, Then Have Them Removed