By Roxanne "Flashbulb" Starr
When Cassie Ventura filed her civil lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs in November 2023, the world reacted with shock. Cheyenne Roundtree, an investigative reporter at Rolling Stone, admits she was one of them.
"I'd grown up in the era of Diddy and Cassie and viewed them as this power couple," Roundtree said in her first interview on the subject, speaking with The Guardian. "Her hit Me & U was my song. Diddy was this mogul — I knew him for the music — and she was this style inspiration, this beautiful, talented woman living an amazing life."
Ventura's suit — later settled — alleged that Combs had beaten and raped her, plied her with drugs, and forced her into sexual encounters with male sex workers over their decade-long relationship. It cracked open a story Roundtree says had been building for years beneath the surface of Combs's public image: lost police reports, patterns of behavior, rumors that had circulated for years without ever fully surfacing.
Roundtree's reporting, detailed in the Guardian interview, traces what she describes as a long history that predates the Ventura lawsuit — one that raises hard questions about how allegations against powerful men in the industry went unheeded for so long. The Guardian's account is drawn from a single extended interview with Roundtree, and The American Times has not independently verified the underlying reporting she describes; readers should note that these are her characterizations of a body of work still unfolding in the courts.
Combs faces ongoing legal scrutiny stemming from the allegations. This remains a developing story.
— If I can't source it, you won't read it here.
— Compiled from reporting by The Guardian.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."