The Hot, Heartbreaking Testimony in Diddy's Sex-Trafficking Trial
Trial Day 22 Recap: Witness Testifies About Combs' Involvement in 'Hotel Nights' Until August 2024
In the culminating week of the dubious entertainer Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial, the courtroom was filled with raw emotion as one of his ex-girlfriends, disguised as "Johanna," tearfully recounted her part in his sordid arrangement of "partial sessions" with male escorts.
Through misty eyes, Johanna told the jury that Combs forced her to join in the adult playgrounds—dubbed "freak-offs" or "hotel nights"—for three long years, until their relationship came crashing down in September 2024 when federal agents arrested Combs for sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and prostitution.
Johanna claimed the raunchy rendezvous could stretch for three grueling days and demanded her, during the escapades, to bed up to three other men alongside Combs, making her only a pawn in his lurid games. With Combs masturbating while watching her and the male escorts, Johanna said she turned to drugs to endure the humiliating circuses.
"I just learned to tune out and get into a zone," she testified, her voice filled with regret. "I just know what my partner likes to see, and I just turn on this persona and I just begin."
Johanna's Testimony: A Mirror to Previous Allegations
Prosecutors assert that Combs utilized his riches and influence to persuade multiple women into unwanted sexual encounters while using threats and violence to gag their dissent and shield his status in the music-industry and fashion world. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, which could send him to prison for life if found guilty. His lawyers contend that any sexual interactions between the alleged victims and Combs were consensual, with Combs’ rambunctious behavior and drug abuse not making him a sex trafficker or racketeer.
Johanna's account in the dock echoed the allegations made by Combs' other ex-girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, who likewise took the jury through a sordid narrative of male prostitutes, multi-day sexual escapades, and the substances that fueled them. Both women shared accounts of their relationships with Combs that spiraled into intense sexual sessions, drug dependence, being forced to book the male escorts, and repeated pleas to Combs to stop the hotel nights.
"I just didn't feel like I had much choice," Ventura testified. "I didn't really know what 'no' would be or what 'no' could turn into."
The Power of Manipulation and Threats
Johanna testified that Combs threaten to withhold his financial support if she objected to the hotel nights. Currently imprisoned in a federal jail in Brooklyn, she said Combs is still paying her rent.
Johanna testified the three-year relationship with Combs was a painful recollection, with the hotel nights taking up the majority of their time together. To her frustration, they were happening so frequently that she suffered regular soreness and urinary tract infections. Johanna added it infuriated Combs if she asked the male escorts to wear condoms.
Defense lawyers argued that Johanna was merely a jilted lover, painfully resenting that her relationship with Combs did not progress beyond the sexual encounters.
During interrogation from prosecutors, Johanna acknowledged her jealousy of Combs' relationships with other women, her disdain for the hotel nights, and her feelings of manipulation by Combs. The prosecutors presented dozens of messages and notes reinforcing Johanna's frustrations with Combs and her pleas to leave the hotel nights, potentially reinforcing the team's argument that the sexual encounters were not fully consensual.
"I realized that since 2021 that I had been saying the same thing over and over," Johanna testified about her frequent entreaties to quit the hotel nights.
Recording Exposes Combs' Authoritarianism
The day's emotional testimony began with prosecutors playing a part of a recording from one of the hotel nights, where Combs could be heard dictating the proceedings. On the tape, Johanna and a male sex worker were heard searching for a condom when Combs objects, asserting, "You're taking that d-."
Johanna testified that Combs generally insisted that the male prostitutes not wear condoms when they had sex with Johanna. Requesting a condom would make Combs "unhappy" or unsatisfied with her, she said.
"I didn't want to disappoint my lover," she testified. "I just didn't want to upset him."
Narrating what she described as a "typical hotel night," Johanna said Combs would encourage the male escort to ejaculate on her without allowing her clean up before engaging with Combs in sexual intercourse. She stated that a regular hotel night would involve three rounds of this kind of sexual activity.
When asked, "Who decided if you could stop when you were tired?" Johanna began sobbing as she said, "Sean." The testimony paused as she wiped her eyes clean.
"I would give subtle cues that I was tired, why I was hungry, or I would come in and give him little faces," Johanna said. "He would say 'You're not getting tired on me. Let's finish strong.'"
Johanna testified that she relied on drugs like ecstasy provided by Combs to keep herself awake for the hotel nights, taking multiple doses to make it through the sordid escapades. They could span as long as three days. She added that she needed to take sleeping pills to finally rest once the freak-offs finally concluded.
"I didn't want it to feel like it was too real," Johanna said, her voice brimming with sorrow. "I just wanted to make things easier."
Twice, Johanna testified that she attempted to persevere through a hotel night without drugs.
"I was just tired of doing that to my body," Johanna said. "I didn't like it. The fantasy of it wasn't there. It wasn't easy. It was just too real that it was happening."
Ventura, who testified earlier in the trial, claimed she, too, depended on drugs during the multi-day sexual sessions. The drug use, Ventura said, contributed to her addiction.
"I couldn't imagine myself doing any of that without having some sort of buffer or a way to not feel it for what it really was, which was emotionless and sex with a stranger that I didn't want to be having sex with," Ventura testified.
Louder Than Words
As Johanna spoke softly about the pain and emotional torment she encountered during her relationship with Combs, she also spoke about the underlying infrastructure Combs relied on to orchestrate the marathon sexual encounters. Johanna told jurors about Combs' assistants who arranged the hotel rooms, procured vast amounts of cash to pay the male prostitutes, and supplied the drugs that Combs demanded when he desired them.
On two occasions, Johanna testified she transported drugs for Combs from Los Angeles to Miami.
"He just told me to visit his Beverly Hills residence and pick it up from security," Johanna said. She stated that she communicated with Combs' chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, in advance. Khorram's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from our website.
"I remember she was saying, like, 'Hey, just call, and I'll have security come out and give it to you,'" Johanna said. "I just asked her whether it was safe and if it was okay."
She testified that she recalled Khorram's response: "It's fine, I do it all the time. Just put it in your checked luggage."
The package, Johanna said, reportedly contained ecstasy that she later consumed during a hotel night in Miami.
- The testimony of Johanna, a former girlfriend of Sean "Diddy" Combs, revealed that she was forced to participate in sex-related activities, known as "freak-offs" or "hotel nights", while in a romantic relationship with him from 2021 to 2024.
- In her testimony, Johanna described how she was pressure to engage in these activities, often booking male escorts for multi-day sexual encounters, and how Combs' manipulation led her to turn to drugs to endure the humiliating experiences.
- Johanna testified that she was also involved in transporting drugs, specifically ecstasy, for Combs on two occasions, communicating with his chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, to arrange the transfers.
