In November 2023, Cassie Ventura filed a lawsuit that sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry, detailing years of alleged rape, violent physical abuse, and suffocating control at the hands of Sean “Diddy” Combs. Though the suit was settled in a day, the silence was irrevocably broken. Her act emboldened a wave of other women to come forward with their own hauntingly similar stories, painting a picture of a decades-long pattern of Diddy’s alleged predatory behaviour shielded by fame and power.

After months of investigation and a highly publicised trial, the verdict came in. Jurors found Diddy not guilty of the most serious crimes: sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and racketeering conspiracy, which carried a potential life sentence. Instead, he was convicted on two lesser counts of transportation for prostitution.

For survivors everywhere, this outcome is a familiar and painful story. It’s a legal ruling that acknowledges a crime occurred but utterly fails to grasp the scale of the alleged systemic abuse. The verdict is another stark reminder of a devastating truth: our justice system, with its rigid rules and archaic definitions, was not designed to protect victims of complex, coercive trauma. It was designed to let powerful men slip through the cracks.

An Abridged Timeline of Diddy’s Case

• November 2023: Cassie Ventura files her groundbreaking lawsuit that was settled within 24 hours
• December 2023 – Early 2024: More women file lawsuits, alleging a pattern of drugging, coercion, and sexual assault dating back to the 1990s.
• May 2024: Leaked hotel surveillance footage from 2016 shows Diddy physically assaulting Cassie, providing a chilling visual confirmation of her allegations.
• September 2024: Following federal raids, Diddy is arrested.
• July 2025: A New York jury acquits Diddy of racketeering and sex trafficking but convicts him on two counts of transportation for prostitution.

The Courtroom Is Not a Safe Space

The Diddy trial perfectly illustrates how the courtroom itself becomes a hostile environment for survivors.

First, there is the myth of the “perfect victim.” Survivors are expected to perform their trauma in a way that is neat, tidy, and unemotional. Jurors in Diddy’s case reportedly focused on the tone of the survivors’ text messages, questioning their reactions instead of the terrifying circumstances they were in. This is a classic form of victim-blaming, where a survivor’s coping mechanisms are used to discredit their testimony.

Second, the trial does not end with the verdict. Survivors are subjected to secondary victimization in the court of public opinion. Their identities are exposed by online creators, their motives questioned, and their pain turned into entertainment. Take a look at Diddy’s case, when the news broke that he had evaded the more serious charges, his supporters celebrated by pouring baby oil on their bodies, a direct and sickening mockery of the trial’s evidence. If you didn’t already know, 1,000 bottles of baby oil found in Combs’ mansion were a key detail linked by prosecutors to the coerced “freak-offs.” Surviors seek justice and are handed a global spectacle, forced to relive their trauma over and over again. Their bravery did not fail, our system did.

More so, inmates at Diddy’s jail reportedly gave him a standing ovation after the verdict.You know something is profoundly wrong with our culture when the men inside a prison give a standing ovation to a man accused by multiple women of depraved, violent acts. That applause had nothing to do with a belief in his innocence. It was a celebration of a system that could be gamed, a cheer for a powerful man who found the escape hatches. It was a chilling salute from one group of men to another, a toxic solidarity that completely erases the women at the heart of the trial and places more value on “beating the rap” than on justice for victims.

What Nigeria Can (At Least) Learn From US Jurisdictions

While the American justice system is still deeply flawed, legislative reforms in some states offer a crucial blueprint for what a survivor-centred system could look like. For Nigeria, where institutional distrust and patriarchal norms create immense barriers for survivors, these lessons are vital.

1. Mandate Trauma-Informed Training: The Diddy trial proves that legal professionals often don’t understand trauma. Nigeria must invest in mandatory, continuous training for our police, lawyers, and judiciary. A trauma-informed officer understands why a survivor’s memory might be fragmented. A trauma-informed judge knows that staying with an abuser is a symptom of coercive control, not a sign of consent. This is about changing mindsets, not just laws.
2. Ban the Gag Orders and Protect Survivors Online: In the US, some states are banning the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to silence victims. Nigeria must follow suit. Power and money should not be able to buy a survivor’s silence. Furthermore, our laws, like the Cybercrimes Act, must be strengthened to explicitly protect survivors from the doxxing, harassment, and online mob justice that inevitably follow high-profile cases.

Diddy’s verdict wasn’t a total loss, but it certainly wasn’t justice. It was a painful reminder that the fight is far from over. The courage of Cassie Ventura and the other women who came forward has ignited a global conversation that cannot be silenced by a partial conviction. Here in Nigeria, too, countless brave women have risked everything to speak out against abuse—in a country where the systems are even less forgiving. Their voices matter. Their stories matter. The work now falls to us—to demand laws that believe survivors, institutions that protect them, and a culture that finally understands that accountability is not optional.”