A former escort allegedly hired by Sean “Diddy” Combs for “more than a dozen” of his “freak offs” with Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura has stated that “the tone” of the s*x parties changed over time.
“I just would say overall, the tone was a little darker towards the last times I’d seen them,” Shawn Dearing claims in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE.
“I got to see the dark side of things,” the model, added.
Ventura’s attitude during those final “freak offs” was, “I’m here, I have to perform. Let’s do this,” Dearing alleges.
“It was more of a ‘doing this to please him’ type of spirit overall,” he notes. “I can tell when the energy was different.”
Ventura, “was playing her role,” Dearing claims.
“It was evil … and she was under that.”
Dearing continued, “In my opinion, in that situation, she didn’t know if this was a beast she could control or not anymore. So she was along for the ride, because she had to, because who knows? Who knows where this beast is going, and there’s no way to tame it.”
Ventura also broke down in tears while testifying about the “freak offs” during Combs’ s*x trafficking trial on Friday, May 16.
The “Me & U” singer noted that Combs coerced her into participating in what federal prosecutors have described as “elaborate and produced s*x performances” through physical violence and threats of blackmail.
“I had to do ‘freak offs’,” she said on the stand, after telling the court on Wednesday, May 14th, that she did not want to do them.
Dearing stated that Combs first hired him in late 2014 or early 2015 through the website Cowboys4Angels and that he did not know the identity of the client beforehand.
He also claimed that he was booked for “more than a dozen” sessions with Combs and Ventura, which typically took place at either a bungalow at The Beverly Hills Hotel or a condo off Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles that he believes belonged to Ventura.
After leaving escorting behind in 2017 and moving back to his home state of Hawaii, Dearing says Combs tried to hire him again. He passed.
“I just kind of had to do a lot of personal soul searching, in a sense,” he explains. “I stepped away from that, realizing it was darker. Because honestly, I do care about these ladies. So I had to step away.”
Dearing adds, “I never thought that [escorting] was part of my life plan.”
Though he is “on a different path these days,” Dearing says he is unfazed by others’ opinions of him.
“The truth is, I don’t care what anyone says about me,” he shares. “If people would want to think negative thoughts about me, that’s on them.”
