This week, the federal trial against Sean “Diddy” Combs began in New York. Combs is facing charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, and he has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Combs’ defense attorney, Marc Agnifilo, is using a familiar tactic to describe the hip-hop mogul’s relationship with one of his accusers, his former longtime girlfriend, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura.
“There was hitting on both sides,” Agnifilo said in court. “We’re going to take the position that there was mutual violence in the relationship.”
This concept, often referred to as “mutual violence” or “mutual abuse,” suggests that both parties in an abuse case engaged in abusive behavior. This idea was also brought up in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial.
But Loyola Marymount University law professor Laurie Levenson said “mutual abuse” is not a legal defense of abuse.
“You won’t find in the law books a mutual abuse defense. What you’ll see are defendants arguing, ‘Well, I really thought that the victim was consenting because they were doing it to me, and therefore I could do it to them,’ ” she said.
“[But] it is not okay in the criminal law world to abuse somebody and then say, ‘Well, they’re at fault, too.’ “
Bev Gooden, author of Surviving: Why We Stay and How We Leave Abusive Relationships, believes the idea of “mutual abuse” goes against the very definition of abuse as well.
“Abuse is about a pattern of behavior designed to maintain control over another person,” she said. “Abuse is about power, it’s about control, manipulation, not just physical violence or aggression. And so even if both people engage in harmful behaviors, one is typically the abuser controlling the situation.”
Gooden added that it’s critical to understand the power dynamics at play to be able to differentiate between abuse and fighting back, even if they look similar.
She said, “I find that what often gets labeled as mutual abuse is more accurately a trauma response… The thing that I always say is that trauma responses can cause harm. And I think that’s what the public is seeing when they see someone lashing back or lashing out at the abusive partner – [but] that’s not the same thing as being abusive. Harm is not abuse. Conflict is not abuse. Abuse is about power and control. It is a pattern, not just messy behavior on both sides.”
But why would Combs’ defense concede that his relationship with Ventura was violent at all? Levenson thinks that the defense is trying to reframe this “mutual violence” as a consensual part of the sexual relationship – a strategy she saw in the case of former Dodger’s player Trevor Bauer.
“Trevor Bauer, back in 2021, he was accused of abusing [someone] with various harmful and physically painful sexual activities. And his defense was, ‘Well, that’s just the way we have sex,’ ” she said. “And in fact, that case ended up being dropped.”
Gooden said kink is not abuse. Practitioners are adamant that enthusiastic consent is central to kink.
“Now [Bauer’s case] wasn’t as extreme as what’s being alleged here against Combs,” Levenson added, “but I think the defense is trying to reframe this as, ‘Gee, that’s just how the world of rock ‘n’ roll works, and these people wanted to be part of it, so they’re not truly victims.’ “
Gooden added that this narrative might be especially palatable for the public, who might be fans or admirers of a celebrity like Sean Combs.
“We often have a hard time believing that someone we hold in high esteem could be abusive, that the same hands that create art can also create terror,” she said. “That’s really hard to sit with, and I empathize with people who are working through that, ’cause I’ve been there. I think a healthier way to deal with that hurt and confusion is to accept that someone can be good to you and still hurt someone else.”
Transcript:
BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:
Hello, hello. I’m Brittany Luse, and you’re listening to IT’S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, a show about what’s going on in culture and why it doesn’t happen by accident.
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LUSE: All right. All right. This week, we are connecting the dots between R&B, racketeering and Amber Heard. I know, I know – how are all of these things connected? Well, we are going to find out with author Beverly Gooden and Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson.
Bev, Laurie, welcome to IT’S BEEN A MINUTE.
LAURIE LEVENSON: Thank you so much.
BEVERLY GOODEN: Thank you for having us.
LUSE: So, first off, what is your favorite courtroom drama?
LEVENSON: “My Cousin Vinny.”
LUSE: Oh, that’s a good one. Mine is not a drama. Technically, it’s not a drama, but there was drama going on in the courtroom, and that’s “Legally Blonde.” I just feel like…
LEVENSON: Do you know who the legal advisor was for that movie?
LUSE: No.
LEVENSON: You’re looking at her.
LUSE: No way.
GOODEN: Oh, my goodness.
LUSE: Laurie, that’s so major.
GOODEN: Oh, my goodness.
LUSE: (Laughter).
GOODEN: A celebrity.
LUSE: Wow. Oh, my gosh.
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LUSE: Well, I’ll tell you what. Right now, out in the world, we have a courtroom drama that I wish I could say was fiction with a criminal case against Sean Combs beginning this week.
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LUSE: Sean Combs – aka Diddy – is a music mogul and business executive known for his Bad Boy Entertainment music label and his associations with various celebrities in Hollywood. And now he’s facing federal charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. One of Diddy’s primary accusers is the R&B singer Cassie Ventura, with whom he had an on-and-off relationship for over a decade, and she claims that she went through years of abuse during their relationship, which ended in 2018. Diddy pleaded not guilty to all charges. Federal prosecutors have alluded to a trove of evidence against him, including video documentation, surveillance footage, witness testimony, firearms, drugs and more, suggesting that he wasn’t following the law.
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LUSE: So it caught my attention when I read a Washington Post article quoting defense attorney Marc Agnifilo saying there was hitting on both sides, and we’re going to take the position that there was mutual violence in the relationship. This concept, often referred to as, quote, “mutual violence” or “mutual abuse,” suggests that both parties engaged in abusive behavior, and it might sound familiar to anyone who has followed celebrity abuse trials in the past. So I wanted to talk to Bev and Laurie to understand what is mutual abuse in a legal context, where have we seen this tactic used before and could this strategy really help Diddy avoid a potential life sentence in federal prison?
LEVENSON: Well, in the legal case, right now, Sean Diddy Combs is a defendant in a federal racketeering case, and that’s a really serious case. And he is charged with running a criminal enterprise that involves sex trafficking, bribery, kidnapping, assault, a range of activity where basically, he would allegedly use women. He would pay them off in order to have his freak off parties. But it wasn’t mutual abuse.
LUSE: Yeah. This idea of mutual abuse is something that I’ve seen, you know, floated by Diddy’s legal team as a potential strategy. It was a part of their opening statement. Bev, could you define what mutual abuse could mean to Diddy’s team?
GOODEN: Yeah. Mutual abuse, in this context, is basically saying that Diddy and his partner or Diddy and the people involved in this situation were abusive towards each other, allegedly. And I think it’s important to clarify that mutual abuse is not a true concept. Abuse is about a pattern of behavior designed to maintain control over another person. And so even if both people engage in harmful behaviors, one is typically the abuser controlling the situation. I find that many people don’t fully understand that abuse is about power. It’s about control, manipulation, not just physical violence or aggression. So the focus should always be on understanding the context and power dynamics that are at play.
LUSE: And as our legal expert, Laurie, is mutual abuse a viable defense strategy?
LEVENSON: No, it’s actually not a legal defense. It’s sort of a phrase to say, oh, well, they both agreed to this behavior, and therefore, where’s the harm? And I think as Bev previewed, there’s a lot of harm, and people don’t always agree. They feel pressured to agree. So you won’t find in the law books a mutual abuse defense. What you’ll see are defendants arguing, well, I really thought that the victim was consenting because they were doing it to me, and therefore, I could do it to them. It is not OK in the criminal law world to abuse somebody and then say, well, they’re at fault, too.
LUSE: OK. OK. So, Laurie, you’re saying that mutual abuse is not really a legal defense strategy, and Bev, you described mutual abuse as not even, like, a true concept in terms of how patterns of abuse work. So, I wonder, Bev, why is it so easy for many people to believe that mutual abuse is a thing?
GOODEN: Yeah. I find that what often gets labeled as mutual abuse is more accurately a trauma bond response. And so the science shows that being in an abusive relationship literally rewires your brain. It changes your brain chemistry. That’s what PTSD is. You start living in survival mode, and your body and mind adjust to that constant threat. So what people see from the outside looking in is, yeah, you might act defensive. You might lash out. You might shut down. And so it looks like there is harm going both ways, but it’s not because you’re trying to control anyone. It’s because you’re trying to cope, and you’re trying to stay safe. It’s your nervous system literally doing what it was trained to do under pressure.
The thing that I always say is that trauma responses can cause harm. And I think that’s what the public is seeing when they see – or when they hear about, even – someone lashing back or lashing out at the abusive partner. But that’s not the same thing as being abusive. Harm is not abuse. Conflict is not abuse. Abuse is about power and control. It is a pattern, not just messy behavior on both sides, right? It frustrates me because I think survivors really deserve a society that can tell the difference between the two.
LUSE: You know, I find it interesting that Diddy’s defense team is citing mutual abuse as part of their defense strategy because in doing so, they have to concede that he took part in abusive behavior on some level. So Laurie, why might the defense see this as a beneficial strategy?
LEVENSON: Well, I think the defense here is just trying to reframe this whole case as this other world that the jury might not be familiar with, where people engage in these types of sexual activities and even abusive activities, and that the government has just put them on trial for being different. The prosecutors have to remind them that this case is about real harm – harm to victims. And victims – frankly, even if they’re pressured, they can’t give away their well-being, their physical well-being. The law is there to protect them. So I think the defense here is trying to reframe this as, gee, that’s just how the world of rock ‘n’ roll works, and these people wanted to be part of it, so they’re not truly victims.
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LUSE: Coming up, why it can be so hard for us to recognize abusive behavior in the people we look up to.
GOODEN: We often have a hard time believing that someone we hold in high esteem could be abusive.
LUSE: That and more after this quick break.
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LUSE: You know, I remember seeing the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial unfold on television, across social media and newspapers and magazines, and seeing a similar kind of reframe in mutual abuse come up a lot. One of Diddy’s primary accusers is the R&B singer Cassie Ventura, with whom he had an on-and-off relationship for over a decade. And she claims that she went through years of abuse during their relationship, which ended in 2018. Critics of Cassie and other women who have alleged similar abuse in their relationships – they often ask, why would this person stay in the relationship so long? Bev, could you help us understand why domestic violence situations can be so difficult to escape from?
GOODEN: Yeah. The dynamics of abuse are really complex. I think one of the things I always talk about is that we’re talking about human hearts here, and we’re talking about human hearts in distress, you know? I think just bringing it back to that really basic level – things can be confusing. You may want your partner to change, or you think you can change them – just things like that, that happen in most relationships, right? Add to that the dynamic of abuse.
And abusive relationships aren’t violent all the time. There are lives, laughs and loves, right? I married my ex because I loved him. We had fun. We had beautiful moments and things felt good a lot. So I stayed with him because I hoped we could get back to that version of us before the violence started. And so other people stay for different reasons – financial stability, children…
LUSE: Right.
GOODEN: …Fear, right? Sometimes it’s because they’ve been threatened or their children have been threatened. And I think if you don’t understand coercive control, it’s really easy to miss how abuse can show up in quiet ways that make it hard to leave.
LUSE: I’m thinking about how all of this reverberates outside of the courtroom, regardless of what the outcome of this case is, regardless of what the jury finds. As we’ve seen happen many times before, whether it was the O.J. Simpson case or the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial, or even in situations where things didn’t necessarily escalate to a trial, like in the case of Chris Brown and Rihanna back in the 2000s, these very public allegations of domestic violence or abusive situations that we as the public become aware of later – they generate so much conversation on social media, in barbershops, beauty salons, group chats, all the time. I find that the way that these cases are framed or covered really affect the way that everyday people understand abuse and talk about it with each other. I’d love to hear from both of you on this. How do you see the reverberations or the possible reverberations of this mutual abuse strategy rippling outward into how everyday people think about abuse? Laurie, I’d love to hear from you first on this.
LEVENSON: Well, that’s such a great question in why this case is really important because it’s not just what’s happening with Combs and his close associates. It’s going to be how people think about relationships in all sorts of industries. So this is a case that gets the public to take a look at what is OK and how we are treated. ‘Cause there’ll be people saying, why did she stay with Combs? Weren’t they paid? Isn’t that something that they wanted to happen? – to really understand, no, it is still coercive, even if somebody finally just goes along with it because they’ve given up.
GOODEN: Yeah. Something Laurie said earlier that I think is really important is that the defense is banking on the fact that the rest of us may not understand the type of relationship that they have. And kink is not abuse, right? Like, if you’re in a relationship that participates in kink, then there is enthusiastic consent from all parties. So we don’t have to understand the details of these relationships to know that consent was not obtained here. And consent should never be implied, right?
And so when it comes to the public’s reaction and how this trickles down into the public, I find this sort of thing thrives where there is love or admiration involved. Whether that’s Diddy or your cousin, a family member or a friend, we often have a hard time believing that someone we hold in high esteem could be abusive, that the same hands that create art can also create terror. That’s really hard to sit with. And I empathize with people who are working through that ’cause I’ve been there. And I think a healthier way to deal with that hurt and confusion is to accept that someone can be good to you and still hurt someone else.
LEVENSON: Apropos to what you were saying, we are in sort of this cycle where the public thinks they know somebody because that person’s a star. And we saw that with O.J. And even though O.J. was acquitted of the murders, it did come out in the trial that he was a serial abuser. They had been called out, the police, eight times…
LUSE: Yeah.
LEVENSON: …To deal with his abuse. I don’t think the public knew that about O.J., and I don’t think the public wanted to believe that about O.J.
GOODEN: And it’s OK to feel shocked and disappointed or even conflicted. I think that’s OK. But for me, it helps to remove the language of good and bad when discussing people holistically – right? – And directly address the action. You are a person who made choices. And your choices were violent, and that violence has consequences. You being good or bad is irrelevant to me. I’m OK with duality. I’m not OK with abuse, and it’s the abuse that needs to be named and confronted.
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LUSE: Wow. You both have given me so much to think about with this conversation. And like I said, regardless of what happens in the courtroom, regardless of what the outcome of this trial is or what the jury decides, they always coincide with big swells in conversation about very difficult topics. And so I really appreciate you both bringing so much to this conversation. I think it’s what a lot of people need to hear, so thank you both so much.
GOODEN: Thank you for having us.
LEVENSON: Thank you so much.
LUSE: That was author Beverly Gooden and Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson. And I’m going to put on my influencer hat for a second and ask you to please subscribe to this show on Spotify, Apple or wherever you’re listening. Click follow so you know the latest in culture while it’s still hot. This episode of IT’S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by…
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LUSE: This episode was edited by…
NEENA PATHAK, BYLINE: Neena Pathak.
LUSE: Our supervising producer is…
BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.
LUSE: Our executive producer is…
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LUSE: All right. That’s all for this episode of IT’S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I’m Brittany Luse. Talk soon.
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