Cassie Ventura’s husband of five years, Alex Fine, broke his silence following his wife’s four days of emotional testimony in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal sex trafficking trial in New York City.
Fine, a 32-year-old model and trainer, praised Ventura, not only for testifying against her ex-boyfriend — while eight-and-a-half months pregnant with the couple’s third child — but for all the “painful work” she did to “save herself.”
“The world has gotten to witness the strength and bravery of my wife freeing herself of her past,” began Fine’s statement read outside the courthouse by Ventura’s attorney Douglas Wigdor.
“There has been speculation online surrounding how it must feel for me to sit there and listen to my wife’s testimony,” he continued. “I have felt so many things sitting there. I have felt tremendous pride and overwhelming love for Cass. I have felt profound anger that she has been subjected to sitting in front of a person who tried to break her.”
Fine then turned his attention to the disgraced hip-hop mogul, but did not mention him by name.
“To him and all of those who helped him along the way, please know this: You did not. You did not break her spirit, nor her smile, that lights up every room,” he said. “You did not break the soul of a mother who gives the best hugs and plays the silliest games with our little girls. You did not break the woman who has made me a better man.”
Though Ventura testified on the stand that Fine prevented her suicide attempt two years ago, he wanted to make clear that he “did not save Cassie.”
“To say that is an insult to the years of painful work my wife has done to save herself. Cassie saved Cassie,” Fine said. “She alone broke free from abuse, coercion, violence and threats. She did the work of fighting the demons that only a demon himself could have done to her. All I have done is love her as she has loved me.”
With the conclusion of Ventura’s testimony on Friday, Fine said the “horrific chapter is forever put behind us and we will not be making additional statements.”
In her own statement, also read by Wigdor, Ventura said the week has been “extremely challenging but also remarkably empowering and healing.” She hopes her testimony helps other survivors “heal from abuse and fear.”
“For me, the more I heal, the more I can remember. And the more I can remember, the more I will never forget,” Ventura said.
It was Ventura’s bombshell lawsuit against the Bad Boy founder in November 2023, accusing him of rape, sex trafficking and years-long abuse, that alerted the public at large to the alleged dark side of Combs’ success.
Though the former couple settled the suit within a day, dozens of lawsuits detailing similarly horrific allegations have since followed.
A year ago, CNN published an excerpted video of Combs brutally beating Ventura in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016.
The full, unedited 15-minute video was released earlier this week and played in court for the jury.
