Madeline Halpert
Appearances
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
So we saw pictures of the car and the bottle that was supposed to be a Molotov cocktail that set fire to the car. And we also heard about whether any DNA was able to be recovered from the scene. So they were able to take some prints from the scene, one that was a partial match to a woman, but they didn't get more information than that.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
And then probably the most dramatic part of the morning was they said there were other fingerprints that were taken from the scene. But the arson investigator said that the LAPD actually destroyed the evidence that same year and that usually he would be involved in any decision like that. So that kind of started this big argument from Combs attorneys who did not want that evidence to be included.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
They were angry. They said basically that. The questioning from prosecutors about this was making it seem like, quote, somebody in the room was responsible for the destruction of this evidence.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yes. Combs lawyer Mark Agnifilo called it outrageous, prosecutor's line of questioning, and he moved for a mistrial. It's not the first time they've done it, and it probably won't be the last time. So, yeah, they were just arguing that it was outrageous that they brought up this line of questioning and that jurors would not be able to go back. Of course, prosecutors did not agree with that.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
So the judge, he decided a middle ground and that he said, we're going to just give an instruction to the jury to disregard it. But he rejected their motion for a mistrial.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, it was one of several lines from Clemson attorneys that kind of brought up and then we lost. But he was pressing him about why they didn't include it in the report. And the fire department official was basically just like Kid Cudi told me that was his glove. So it was not relevant to the investigation. And we moved on.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, he was the most colorful witness we've seen so far, I would say. I mean, they asked him if he was subpoenaed there and if he wanted to be there, and his response was absolutely not. So a lot of snark and a lot of laughs from even the attorneys questioning him as well as other people in the audience. But he had other answers that were very funny.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
At one point, one of Combs' attorneys asked him how he was doing, and he said, blessed. which is not something we typically hear when somebody's on the stand.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, they said, that's kind of a glamorous shot of you. And he said, yes, I look amazing. He had those kind of more colorful, lighthearted responses throughout his testimony, which was about quite a dark subject.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, there were, I think he said that he witnessed a lot of violence, but there were three incidents in particular that stuck out to him. One incident we'd actually heard about before, it was an incident where Cassie was badly injured. She got a big gash in her eyebrow when she said Combs threw her onto her bed frame.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
And we had heard that there were two other people there during that incident, and Nash was one of them. So we heard kind of his version of events today. And he described jumping on Combs' back and being thrown off, trying to get him to stop attacking Cassie.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
He said actually that Combs didn't stop beating up Cassie after she hit her head on the bed frame until he saw all this blood and then kind of panicked. But yeah, he said he tried to call 911, and then somebody told him to stop. He didn't remember who. And then in the end, Combs had a security person take Cassie to the plastic surgeon to get this scar fixed.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
So that sort of speaks to the racketeering element of the prosecutor's case. And didn't Diddy say something to them after that attack?
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
There was one incident where Cassie and Nash were cooking at her house and Combs came in and started yelling at her.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
and they were able to get away and they were driving away but combs he called them and told them to pull over so that he could come and talk to them and nash says that he came up to the window and knocked on the window and and was yelling at cassie and told her like i'm going to release your sex tapes i'm going to send it to your parents jobs we kind of get an idea about how little he says he knew about cassie and diddy's sex life because his response immediately is nash's response is
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, and that's when Cassie responded, actually, no, he's just filming me having sex with other men. He's not actually in these videos. So, yeah, and she, I think, also told him at that time, he asked her if she wanted to be doing these freak-offs, and she said, no, she did not want to be doing them.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, it was her 29th birthday, I believe, and they were all out, and then they ended up going to a karaoke bar. They found their way back to Cassie's house, and Nash says he saw Cassie packing a black duffel bag, and that duffel bag is what she packed any time she went to go to a hotel to have these freak-offs.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
And she told Nash that she didn't want to be doing this on her birthday, but he was making her do it.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, we've heard that from Cassie, we've heard that from other employees, and then we heard that from Nash again today, that he still had some sort of affection toward him even after all of this. He said, my whole 20s, this man's sanity was my safety. So there's really complicated relationships between a lot of the people who worked for him and even Cassie, a victim of his alleged abuse.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
I never have either, and I've covered several trials, including the Trump trial. I've never seen this amount of civilian journalists. I mean, we've heard from people who told us they do like a health and fitness podcast, but now they're pivoting to the Diddy trial because it's just such a massive amount of views.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
So it makes for a really odd scene around and even inside the courtroom with all these people from very different backgrounds in one place.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
He was going over a lot of the details that we've already heard. He kept asking him to kind of specify exactly how he ended up working as a stylist. At one point, he asked him what a stylist does, which we'd already been over.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, absolutely. He made that a real point. Mrs. Fine, he said. And Donaldson kept repeating it back to him and putting a lot of emphasis on that Mrs. Fine. And I think you kind of get in that sense that he's still friends with Cassie. He just told us that he just congratulated Cassie yesterday for having her third baby.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, he talked a lot about her music career and how much money, Donaldson that is, how much money Combs must have spent on her studio time to try to counter this narrative from prosecutors that Cassie's career was stalled because Combs didn't let her release that many albums or music. In terms of her hair, we also heard a lot from the prosecutors asking Nash about...
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Did Combs have to approve all of her looks? And he said, yes, we picked whatever outfit he wanted. We picked whatever hairstyle he wanted.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
And once again, Donaldson was trying to chip away at that narrative a bit, you know, pointing out that Combs, he ended up picking out one hairstyle for Cassie that made her, quote, iconic, known for that hairstyle so that it wasn't just about him controlling her, but it was because he had good judgment and good taste.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, he wanted them to be done with Nash by the end of the day. And that's why we all stayed longer. And then he got angry at Donaldson saying, did you know this already when we were discussing the timeline? And Donaldson claimed that, no, he's just realizing that it was going to take a long time to finish it.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie’s ex-stylist: We hid 'too many times to count' to stop Diddy 'attack'
Yeah, so at the beginning of the day, we heard more about the sort of interaction between... Combs and the rep for Kid Cudi. So we heard from a Los Angeles Police Department officer as well as an arson investigator with the Los Angeles Fire Department. And the arson investigator told us more about this alleged bombing of Kid Cudi's Porsche.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
There's been a lot of starting and stopping today. So it began this morning. They were supposed to start yesterday, but they decided in the end to push it to today. And we started going through Mr. Combs and Cassie Ventura's relationship. So we started with the early days. There was some going back and forth in terms of time periods, but just kind of
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
establishing actually the the love in their relationship and the passion that was there they were trying to show that other side of things we've heard a lot about the abuse but today was kind of at least at the beginning was more focused on why they were together and why she fell in love with him and when they said to cassie things like you were in love with him right you were in love with him for 11 years how did she respond to those kind of questions she did not deny loving him there were these
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
positive things about a relationship. I stayed with him for, they were on and off for 11 years, but we got back together several times. There were times she pushed back, like the attorney said, you kept coming back to him. And she said, no, I wouldn't frame it like that. It wasn't coming back, but that they kept getting back together.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
So she acknowledged that there were these positive elements to their relationship too.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Yeah, so they wanted to get at their larger argument that Cassie had free will and was a willing participant in these sex acts. And so they showed us a lot of text messages today, but some of them that we saw from Cassie that she sent to Mr. Combs was, you know, I love our FOs, freak-offs, when we both want it, she said. At another point, she said, we wish we could have FOed before you left.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
So they wanted to paint this picture of her... at sometimes being interested in actually having these. And of course, you know, she tried to clarify. At one point she said those were just words at that point. But we definitely saw a different side of the, you know, her involvement in the freak-offs there than what we saw with the direct questioning.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
What did she give as an explanation? A lot of the times she just acknowledged that, yes, that's what I said. That's what I said at the time. She didn't have as much of an opportunity to kind of give the context because this is like cross-examination, yes or no questions. But there were times when she pushed back. There was at one point she was reading a long, many, many pages of texts.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And she said to the judge, this is not what I think is relevant. We're skipping over a lot of stuff. So there she's trying to get at there's a larger context that you're missing, which is, of course, what lawyers do on both sides, right, when they're trying to show evidence and prove their point.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Yeah, today it was a conversation between the attorneys and the judge. And he was saying the expectation was that Cassie would be done with all of her testimony by the end of the week. As you said, she's very pregnant, which they don't say that. They say she's time sensitive, but we can say that's the reason why.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
And the Mr. Combs attorney, Mark Agnefillo, was saying basically we might need more time and the judge was not having that. He was saying, really, you guys should all be done with everything by lunch. And what about the prosecution?
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
We heard a lot of objections from prosecution, objections over relevance, over asking, not giving enough foundation before asking a question. I think we've heard more from prosecutors than we did during Cassie's direct testimony. A lot of A lot of and objecting to evidence, too.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
There's been a lot of conversation about whether they can bring up evidence that references Cassie's relationships with other men. And there's been back and forth between lawyers about that. So definitely a lot of objections today.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Jealousy was a huge theme of the defense attorney's arguments today. They must have repeated that remark that Cassie gave about insane jealousy several times. They argued that Cassie was insanely jealous, that Mr. Combs was insanely jealous.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
I think it was a part of their broader point that a lot of the violence in the relationship was not about Mr. Combs trying to control and abuse and coerce Cassie, but more about just these drug-induced moments of jealousy and rage.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
I think earlier in the day, she started off very calm. She's pretty soft-spoken. She was soft-spoken yesterday. And the judge even said at one point, you've got a really cooperative witness, a responsive witness. She's answered their questions very directly. There have been times where she's gotten a little bit more combative.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
I think as the defense attorney accused her over and over again of being addicted to drugs, which she's said repeatedly, there have been times when she's pushed back slightly or tried to get more context in her answers. But overall, she's been pretty contained on the stand.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
There were a lot of celebrity name drops today. We already heard about her relationship with Kid Cudi yesterday, but that was brought up again, so there was a lot of talk about that. At one point, there was a reference to Britney Spears at her 21st birthday party in Las Vegas because Mr. Combs brought her.
Diddy On Trial
Cassie asked about explicit texts to Diddy
Also, Michael B. Jordan came up because Cassie apparently had a brief relationship with him after she broke up with Mr. Combs. So that's a relationship I think we didn't know a ton about before. So there was certainly a lot of celebrity action today in court. But none of those celebrities have been accused of anything within this trial. No, they have not.