Sean Combs’ personal assistant “Mia” returned to the stand for the third day Monday, where she spoke about her reticence to come forward sooner with allegations of sexual assault against Combs. “I was terrified and brainwashed,” she said, per reports, while being cross-examined by Combs’ defense attorney, Brian Steel.
Steel’s line of questioning was similar to the defense’s approach last week, with Combs’ attorneys trying to undermine Mia’s allegations by highlighting instances where she appeared affectionate towards her former boss. Mia (who is testifying under a pseudonym) responded to Steel’s questions by trying to convey the complex emotions that came with working for someone who was both her alleged abuser and someone she described as her “protector.”
At one point, Steel asked Mia outright if her allegations Combs were true, leading her to reply, per reports, “I would not lie in this courtroom. I never lied in this courtroom. Everything I have said is true.”
For much of the cross, Steel asked Mia about supportive and loving text messages she sent Combs both during her employment and after. In one exchange from 2019, after she’d stopped working for Combs, Mia described a nightmare in which Combs saved her while she was trapped in an elevator with convicted sex criminal R. Kelly. A few months later, Mia texted Combs that she was sending him “all the love in the world.”
Asked if Combs still had a hold on her at that point, Mia said the mogul still did “psychologically.” She also added that she sent these texts after “tragic events” in his life, like the death of his partner, Kim Porter, in November 2018.
“I was always constantly seeking his approval. He was my authority figure, my only authority figure,” Mia said at one point.
Steel also pressed Mia over why there was no contemporaneous documentation of Combs’ alleged abuse, even though she was constantly filming Combs at his instruction and taking notes during their time together. Mia said she never captured Combs in a moment of anger because she “would not have been allowed to film that.” She added that she only filmed “whatever he wanted me to film” and that capturing such an incident would’ve been a “huge break of trust, loyalty, and confidentiality,” per reports.
Similarly, Mia said that writing down an alleged instance of abuse, or discussing with others, would’ve been a breach of confidentiality. She said, per reports, that the only time she “reached out for help was very subtly to people in the office but not disclosing things that other people hadn’t witnessed.” She suggested others who worked for Combs were similarly cautious, saying “Nobody around batted an eye” when Combs misbehaved or acted out.
Mia even said she grew fearful when Combs threatened to tell his girlfriend, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura about “everything” between them. Mia said this made her “feel like I had sone something wrong,” as well as “internalize blame and sahsme.”
“I don’t know how to explain what that does to a person,” she added, per reports.
During her testimony last week, Mia repeatedly broke down in tears last week as she detailed a hellish eight years working for Combs between 2009 and 2017.
She claimed she fluctuated between a constant state of feeling like Combs’ best friend and “a worthless piece of crap,” all depending on the volatile mogul’s mood. Sometimes, she’d be showered with praise and promised executive roles in one of Combs’ many companies. At other times, Mia said, she might have her arm crushed in a heavy industrial door or have a bowl of spaghetti hurled at her for not rushing off to IHOP in the middle of the night fast enough.
Mia said her job was always in jeopardy and once was placed on unpaid leave for “insubordination” because she left a hotel without Combs’ permission to attend a party with Ventura at Prince’s house. “We ran through the house,” Mia said of the women trying to escape when Combs turned up. “There was something across the street that looked like — I don’t know if it was woods or not, but somewhere to hide, like bushes, and we were trying to run to hide there.”
Mia testified that Combs sexually assaulted her multiple times, describing the alleged attacks as unpredictable and sporadic. They occurred, she said, on Combs’ 40th birthday bash at the Plaza Hotel, inside his bedroom closet, and on a staff bunk bed while she slept. There were other sexual assaults, Mia said, but she repressed them, only able to recall a “horrible dark feeling in my stomach.”
“I always thought that it was the last time, and if there ever [was] a next time, I would somehow be more prepared,” Mia testified. “We would have to get right back into work, and there was so much going on, I never processed it. I never thought it would happen again.”
Mia was identified as Victim-4 in the Southern District of New York’s criminal indictment against Combs, with her allegations tied to the racketeering charge against the music mogul. Prosecutors accuse Combs of wielding his vast wealth and “multi-faceted business empire” to fulfill his sexual desires with crimes including physical assault, threats, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice. He allegedly forced his sleep-deprived employees to do his bidding by subjecting them to physical force and threats of financial and reputational harm. (Combs has pleaded not guilty to the five felony counts against him.)
On cross-examination, Combs’ attorney, Brian Steel, grilled Mia on why she never told anyone about the alleged assaults. He also confronted Mia with numerous social media posts where she heaped praise on Combs, promoted his business ventures, and created a specialized scrapbook for Combs’ 45th birthday.
“The man who you say has ruined your life,” Steel asked. “This is what you write to him?”
“At the time, as low as he would make me, he would also make me feel the opposite as well,” Mia explained in response. “Again, I can tell you what my therapist has said, but I’m not a professional to explain that.”
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