“Actual Time” host Invoice Maher weighed in on the continued trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, who stands indicted on federal prices together with intercourse trafficking, and the comic appeared responsible Combs’ ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura for the abuse she allegedly suffered at his palms.
“We have to hold two ideas in our head on the identical time,” Maher stated Friday on his present. “One, Diddy is a nasty dude — actually unhealthy. Like, the worst factor in rap since Hammer pants. A violent, sick fuck … and we must always lock him up and throw away the newborn oil.”
“And two, issues have modified sufficient in order that shifting ahead, the rule needs to be, for those who’re being abused, you gotta go away instantly,” he continued. “Now, I utterly perceive why, up to now, ladies typically didn’t try this.”
Maher went on to argue that victims had little recourse previous to the #MeToo motion that emerged within the final decade and helped ladies expose their abusers, however recommended that victims who don’t instantly converse out in at present’s age are at fault for sowing public distrust.
Ventura began relationship Combs in 2007— notably earlier than the #MeToo motion started —and he or she accused him in 2023 of repeated bodily and sexual abuse that started step by step and grew worse over the course of their relationship.
“It’s not victim-shaming to anticipate ladies to have the company to go away poisonous relationships,” Maher stated on Friday.
“Fairly the opposite, to not anticipate that’s infantilizing,” he continued. “If Diddy walks free, will probably be as a result of his attorneys can level to an infinite stream of texts from Cassie expressing what’s typically known as ‘enthusiastic consent.’”
A graphic on the display screen subsequent to Maher confirmed textual content messages from Ventura offered at trial through which she wrote, “I’m all the time able to freak off.”
Combs’ so-called “freak offs” have been orgies he allegedly organized, and he’s accused of drugging Ventura and others earlier than the occasions.
Charles Sykes/Invision/Related Press
Home violence victims typically don’t converse up publicly, or just go away their abusers, out of warranted concern of retribution. Whereas Maher claimed to “perceive” why it “will be troublesome for girls to go away an abusive relationship,” his feedback recommended he didn’t.
“This needs to be society’s new grand cut price,” he stated. “We take each accusation critically, however don’t inform me anymore about your contemporaneous account that you just stated to 2 pals 10 years in the past. Inform the police instantly. Don’t wait a decade. Don’t journal about it.”
“Don’t flip it right into a one-woman present,” he added. “And most significantly, don’t hold fucking him. Your solely contemporaneous notes about what he did needs to be the police report.”
Ventura, who was proven in safety footage launched final yr being brutally crushed by Combs, testified in court docket that she endured “violent arguments that will normally end in some form of bodily abuse” — and that his safety guards “protected him” however “saved a watch on me.”
Representatives for Maher didn’t instantly reply to JHB’s request for remark.
Need assistance? Go to RAINN’s Nationwide Sexual Assault On-line Hotline or the Nationwide Sexual Violence Useful resource Middle’s web site.