Sean “Diddy” Combs’ defense team is seeking to strike Kid Cudi’s claims about a 2012 car explosion — and Diddy’s alleged involvement — from the record amid the disgraced star’s ongoing sex trafficking trial. (Diddy has denied all the charges against him.)
TMZ and People reported on Monday, May 26, that Diddy’s team filed court documents to have a portion of Cudi’s testimony struck, claiming that the “Day ‘n’ Nite” rapper’s allegations about the 2012 incident were “mere speculation” and posed “significant dangers of unfair prejudice.”
Diddy’s team said a “witness generally cannot testify that in his opinion, a declarant was lying when making a statement,” referring to Cudi’s claims on the stand last week that Diddy “was lying” when he denied involvement in the explosion of his Porsche vehicle during a meeting in Los Angeles.
Cudi — real name Scott Mescudi — took the stand during Diddy’s ongoing trial on Thursday, May 22, and discussed his relationship with Diddy’s ex and fellow trial witness, Cassie, with whom he had a relationship in 2011 while she and Diddy were on a break. (Diddy and Cassie dated on and off from 2007 to 2018.)
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Cudi said that in 2012, after he and Cassie had broken up, his dog sitter called him to tell him that his car was on fire. “The top of my Porsche was cut open and that’s where they inserted the Molotov cocktail,” he testified.
Following the car incident, Cudi alleged that he met up with Diddy at the Soho House in Los Angeles. “Sean Combs was standing there with his hands behind his back like a Marvel supervillain,” Cudi claimed, adding that his fellow rapper said they were “homies” and said he didn’t understand why Cudi would date Cassie. “He kept offering me water. It was weird that he was so calm,” Cudi continued, noting that he found Diddy’s demeanor “off-putting.”
When Cudi asked him about the car, Diddy allegedly gave him a “very cold stare” and replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Years later, the two men had a second meeting at Soho House, where Diddy allegedly told Cudi he was sorry for the past. “Man, I just want to apologize for everything, all that bulls***,” Cudi recalled Diddy saying, adding that the Sean John founder brought one of his daughters to the meeting.
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“After that apology, I kind of came to peace with all of it,” Cudi told the court. “That’s the last thing I was expecting to get.”
In her own trial testimony earlier in May, Cassie claimed that Diddy found out about her romance with Cudi in 2011 when he searched through her emails during a “freak off” and found a correspondence between her and Cudi’s team about bringing a toiletry bag to a house. Cassie alleged that Diddy subsequently lunged at her with a “wine bottle opener.”
Cassie also claimed that Diddy threatened to blow up Cudi’s car and wanted Cudi’s friends to be there to witness it.
Diddy is currently on trial on charges including racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and denied all of the allegations against him.
