⚠️ Trigger Warning: Please Read Before Proceeding…
This piece contains graphic descriptions and personal accounts related to sexual assault, grooming, misogyny, childhood trauma, gender-based violence, and systemic abuse, particularly as they relate to the experiences of Black women. It also references public figures currently involved in legal cases regarding abuse and trafficking.
While this writing is a powerful act of truth-telling and reclamation, it may be emotionally activating for some readers.
Please honor your body, breath, and nervous system. If you need to pause, skip, or come back later — do so with grace. This space is for healing, not harm. You are sovereign here. You are not alone.
Whew, Honey, I had to Janet Jackson, “Let’s wait awhile…” before working on this piece.
It’s been pretty quiet since the circus left town… for the time being anyway.
We started with Robert Sylvester “R. Kelly” Kelly being rushed to the hospital around mid-June 2025 after collapsing in his prison cell at FCI Butner in North Carolina. Reports say it was either an overdose or suicide attempt.
While there, doctors found blood clots in both his legs and lungs.
And while considered life-threatening, prison staff placed him back in solitary confinement just two days later, against medical advice. His lawyers claim this was more than neglect—they say there’s a setup involved, that someone inside is trying to kill him.
Then there’s Sean “Diddy” Combs, whose federal trial wrapped July 2, 2025, with a split decision. The jury found him guilty on two counts of transporting women across state lines for prostitution—violations under the Mann Act—but cleared him on the more serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. So while he dodged a life sentence, he’s still locked up without bail and awaiting sentencing in October 2025. Even though he faces a few years behind bars instead of decades, the damage to his legacy is done.
So here we are—two self-anointed “bad boys” of the industry finally watching the bill come due. Decades of misogyny, manipulation and abuse wrapped in catchy beats and shiny suits… and unchecked power—now on full display.
My empathy for Kelly’s clots and Diddy’s unfortunate life sentence dodge?
Baby, that tank’s flashing on “E.” And I’m not mad that this spotlight is finally shining into spaces where so many predators once thrived. I am disappointed it took so…and may not stick. I am glad they had — are having their day(s) in court. Not all of us got to see our abusers brought to some semblance of justice… but some are starting to. And that matters.
It’s sad. Both of these motherfuckers are approaching 60. They need to have their asses in someone’s Club Med, enjoying the spoils of their labor instead of appealing lifelong Club Fed sentences. Bitchass Bill Cosby was in his 80s when he went to prison for sexual assault. Justice may not have been swift, but it was served… until it wasn’t. The system eventually overturned his conviction, unleashing that bug-eyed bastard back into the wild. I fear the same thing will happen with Combs.
Fuck all three of these dudes, and serial abusers like them.
- Fat Albert & The Gang raised me. Now I can never look at the reruns the same.
- That Gordan Gartrell episode of The Cosby Show, watched in syndication, is now marred by betrayal and sadness. RIP Malcolm-Jamal Warner
- I can no longer step in the name of love without embarrassment, and hit skip anytime one of his songs shuffle onto my playlist.
- And I love some Faith Renee Evans. Unfortunately, almost everything she sang has Diddy’s filthy phalanges all over it.
Selfish fucks forever ruined and changed the trajectory of how we enjoy art.
What’s worse: many of Robert, Sean’s, and Bill’s spoils were built off the bodies of Black women’s mental, physical and emotional anguish. The same bodies that resemble those of their Black daughters.
The same Black women who contribute to society the most economically and educationally are, as Malcolm X famously said, the most unprotected people in America.
Justyapping on the popular gossip blog site Lipstick Alley agrees:
“Be honest, when has any wealthy man been sentenced and held accountable for harming a woman? R. Kelly had a full video of him urinating on a minor and got off. And he didn’t have half the power, wealth & social status of Diddy. This why majority of victims opt for a civil suit. Why should they relive their trauma? Just for the person that harmed them to get a slap on the wrist. These jurors saw a whole video of Diddy beating Cassie down a hallway and dragging her back into the room. Because she tried to leave a freak-off . Same violence he denied! And they still didn’t charge him for sex trafficking! Again, this why women do civil suits.
And while Kelly is still serving 30 years from his 2021 New York conviction for racketeering and sex trafficking, and 20 more from his 2022 Chicago conviction for child porn and abusing minors –– Kelly’s lawyers are now pushing for home detention or even a presidential pardon. Sure, his appeals have all been denied, and yet I fear Kelly will be pardoned by this current administration, and that, come October, Combs will walk with time served.
Turns out the Diddy trial is stirring up a lot of feelings for intimate violence survivors –– especially Black women. And apparently incels everywhere!
Many misogynists blame Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura, Diddy’s ex, who set off the barrage of lawsuits against the rapper, for profiting off her pain. Intimating that because she stayed so long, she must’ve liked it.
So many people are like, “Why tell your story now?!”
I’ll tell you why: Bitch! Because we are tired of holding our abusers’ secrets…and have discovered therapy. Not all of us were so lucky to see our abusers have their day(s) in court and get a settlement in the millions as a result.
Cassie was 19 years old when she met Diddy –– the same age as his three eldest daughters. If she started to enjoy certain intimate experiences deemed questionable, it certainly can be attributed to her frontal lobe not being fully developed when she entered into a relationship where her boss groomed her under the guise of a record deal and fame. She was still a child.
From dating a much older Ryan Leslie in her teens to Sean Combs, it’s almost as if the men sold and bought her soul without her knowledge or consent. And even if she did to some degree know, she was a(n) adult-child and groomed by men a minimum of a decade her senior.
Statistically speaking, it takes a woman 7-11 times to leave an abusive relationship.
It often starts with grooming and love bombing, followed by mental, then physical, psychological often financial abuse if and when the woman tries to leave.
Refuge.org.uk says it takes a woman an average of seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship. It often starts with grooming and love bombing, followed by mental, then physical, psychological often financial abuse if and when the woman tries to leave.
For Black women, the math gets worse. We’re brainwashed, bullied, and shamed into standing by our Black men no matter what they do — even if it kills us. We’re told that choosing ourselves is bitterness. That leaving mistreatment means dying alone in a house full of cats.
Well, I’m a witch. And I don’t even like cats.
I liken trauma to a baby that needs burping. If a baby isn’t burped, they may experience discomfort due to trapped gas, which can lead to fussiness, crying, or even spitting up.
Black women are tired of swallowing the spit up –– literally, and are done being quiet when asked to stay silent in exchange for payment or threats of retaliation. They say pain that does not get transformed, gets transmuted. Which can present as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, mental disease. The same Black men who call us too fat, loud and angry to be in relationship with glide pass the fact that many are the symptom for us being this way.
Black family code: What goes on in the four walls of this house stays in these four walls.
Lil Kim did a whole 12 months in prison because she would not snitch on members of her crew: Men. Men who stood by and did nothing when she suffered mental, emotional and physical abuse by her lover: Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Biggie Smalls.
The idea that Black women should apologize for being more educated, more solvent, or more self-possessed than our brothers is preposterous. Misogynoir wrapped in pan-African guilt.
We are expected to standby obediently — bruised, brilliant… and loyal, while “our Men” chase “easier” women, only to return when they need a mammy, a therapist, a punching bag or a soul repository for centuries of projection and patriarchal grief.
Women are tired –– I am tired of keeping the secrets of men who do not, and never deserved my loyalty. Especially since I never had theirs.
College Grooming…
Cassie, in many ways, is a lot of Black women. College campuses are breeding grounds for P Diddys-in-training, where athletes and Black fraternity members assume the roles of “yard” celebrities. But sometimes it is the appearance of an actual so-called celebrity.
For instance, our college campus was one of many in rotation for R. Kelly, with an acquaintance college-goer being one of the subjects of the Surviving R. Kelly documentary. Shit, the minor in the pee tape is a friend of my former students when I was a Resident Advisor. The shit hits close to home.
We don’t live in vaccums, and the collective is affected.
Recently, I caught up with an old college mate who knows all of the aforementioned cast of college characters. She and I discussed how the Sean Combs trial hits different for a lot Black women.
We recounted that it was no accident that the football team helped women-only move in on freshman move-in day. A move clearly designed to get first dibbs on their fresh meat for the semester…or next few nights. A few of our mutual friends succumbed to the advances of the first year collegiate curse. Many of our mutual girlfriends shared STDs, fist blows and pregnancy scares by some of the same few footballers.
But it wasn’t all athletic department who had a lock on the grooming and abusing.
We mustn’t leave out BGLOs: Black Greek Letter Organizations.
Most of these men KNEW they weren’t going to get any play from women by looks and personality alone, that’s why they joined fraternities for “yard” and future cred. That’s the only way to get all the ass they could – consentual or otherwise, during university.
And hall passes at Homecoming to resume 20/30 – sometimes 40-year-old fuck buddy sessions. I mean home | coming… Come home and hop on this dick, no?!
College-mate and I commiserated over this trial, realizing that, now as middle-aged women, we too were groomed and abused… often with attempts to be made pass-arounds.
Brotherhood. Tuh.
She and I talked about how the same fraternity “brothers” smiling in her boyfriend’s face at the time, were trying to sleep with her behind his back. Sure, it’s nothing new and not specific to college campuses, but it is the darkness underlying the betrayal of a “brutha.”
We commented on the sick competition men have with one another. How the jealous guy could have all the toys, and still want what his “friend” has – i.e., his lady.
It isn’t even about attraction, more than it is about conquering.
To these Men, Women are objects to be traded –– commodities, not seen as humans, but things. This same type of creep would even lend this brother the down payment for a home, all while trying to bed his friend’s wife. The loan is pity assistance: See, you can’t even provide for your family. You don’t deserve your wife. Enter: Grooming her to leave her current husband, rescuing her, only to cheat on her.
I know I went down a rabbit hole, but college mate, “Ummm Hmm’d” co-signed that rant.
I shared that these guys weren’t all that attractive per se, but they were nice.
Until they weren’t.
Again –– pregnancy scares, STD as gifts instead of diamonds or a weekend trip away.
But they were charming.
And for a 19-year-old me: freshman, fresh out of the shelter of her parents’ home, that charm was magnetic.
There’s something powerful in feeling wanted, desired — especially when you’re just beginning to explore your sexuality.
It makes a man more attractive, even if he isn’t, objectively.
That’s why so many of us went back. That’s why she went back after he cheated.
Why I did.
Why, maybe Cassie did.
Because we remember the beginning — the inside jokes, the soft smiles, the way he looked at you like you were the center of his world.
Before he lied.
Before the STI(s).
Before the abuse.
Grooming works because it starts as kindness.
But it helps to know your worth as a woman beforehand.
And when you don’t = Tahdah!
The crazy part is that a lot of us were used for cum-dumping, with our bodies exploited in the name of these guys figuring out whether they even liked women or not.
I imagine a large part of the abuse stems from anger-banging women, men thinking they could fuck away their attraction for the same sex, if they just slept with enough women, ahem Diddy, because being true to and honoring your sexuality, whether others agree or not, is frowned upon in this country. Fucking men, pun intended.
Imagine all the abuse toward women that could have been avoided if these same nosey ass men just minded their own business, and kept their paws off our pussies…especially since the lot of them don’t even like us with which to begin.
Funny thing again, is the same judgers and lawmakers are often found in bathroom stalls with other (young) men having gay sex.
Or state representatives like Giovanni Capriglione, who wrote Texas’ abortion ban, being outed for alllegedly paying for the abortion(s) of his longterm mistress, a sex worker named Alex Grace. Seriously…What the fuck is wrong with these sociopaths?
So much hypocrisy, and being “out” that is shrouded in secrecy and shame.
I feel like, again, a lot of violence, especially sexual violence against women, is because men project their closeted behavior and take it out on women because they are too cowardly to be out and proud. It’s much easier to beat and rape a woman than admit that you like sex with men because society will call you a deviant and shame you for it. Laws are created against it by the same men who actually enjoy it.
The brotherhood betrayal doesn’t stop at the collegiate level. Their shitty behavior can, and often follows them into adulthood. Of course, at this stage, exacerbated by more damage and entitlement.
A “friend” from college came to LA for the most recent Super Bowl. I hadn’t seen him in years and really needed to feel a sense of connection from home. He blew up my phone prior to coming and then I only heard from him once upon landing. Understandably, he and the fellas were out doing their thing. He texted and asked if we could link up. I had since sold my car, but shared that I could rent a car and come scoop him.
He left me on read.
It quickly became apparent that he was only interested in whatever “Hollywood” I could invite him into, and what girlfriend group he and his (mostly married) homeboys could run through.
The night before the ball game, I got a text from him that he was at a lounge in Hollywood only three blocks from my house.
But it was already approaching 10 PM. And while I know that is barely pre-game o’clock, I was all ready to settle into a nightly routine of Niles, Daphne and Frasier. Still wanting to satiate that homesickness wound, long before my now fastidous self-care anti-self betrayal stance – I walked over.
“Twenty dollars to get in?”
“Oh shit, they’re checking bags and pockets? I need to distract the bouncer so he doesn’t confiscate my switchblade.”
I said to no one under my breath.
Inside, I was already irritated that I had to pay to get out the bed and that this nigga hadn’t met me at the door to get me in –– I found his big water head.
We embraced, him still holding on long after my arms had dropped.
We headed to the bar and he ordered a Heineken for me.
I thought, “One beer and I’m out.”
We caught up a second when I noticed I didn’t have his full attention.
When I noticed his head on swivel from all the pussy pursuit, I said, “How’s your wife?” He smiled wryly and said she was good.
He grabbed the hand of a woman walking by while purposefully grazing her ass.
She stopped and gave a few minutes of her time and left.
I asked what he would say if his wife had given herself a hall-pass free peen weekend. With a dumb, embarrassed grin, he said he wouldn’t like it. In the same breath, he told me about the orgy he had engaged in the night before.
To confirm my suspicion of his wanting to just use me as a Hollywood Hooker Hook-up, I shook my head and said, “See, you were knee deep in potentially HPV-ridden pussy and I was at this party in the Hollywood Hills.”
His eyes bucked and he whined, “why didn’t you call me?!”
It was a lie of course, not because invites to those parties weren’t easily accessible, but because this asshole needed to be taught a lesson. My days of standing by, politely declining bumps of cocaine, ended during my dancing days on Bourbon Street.
Much like everyone knew to leave a Diddy party before midnight, I knew to never accept another invite to a party in the Hills unless I was driving or had cab fare to get home well before 11 PM. Soho House in WEHO for the Kale Salad –– absolutely! After party at Leo’s (DiCaprio) house? No fucking thank you. If I were never there, I can’t write about it years later.
Disgression for sec, stay with me…
That reminds me of the only time I did accept an invite from another college “friend” (eye-roll) to a party in the ‘Hills’. Ha, this one was a frat boy too! You don’t have to tell me, I realize I had a shitty picker back then…even for (guy)friends.
…Or maybe I was just too trusting of wolves in sheep’s clothing who portended to befriend me under the guise of big brotherhood, when really they had their designs on boinkerhood instead.
Anyway, the party was at the house of a prominent TV judge, who did not seem at all happy that people were in his house. Why open your home then? And where was his wife? I had just moved to LA, and even given my history of being out in these streets, per se, there was still a level of naivete about me. Wanting to believe and see the best in some TV heroes, the advice to never meet yours is spot on.
As soon as I got to the party, having spent my last on a cab there (uber was new), my college friend was heading to his car. When I asked where he was going, he said he had family in town, and only stayed that long to ensure I got to the party.
WTF?!
He told me that this was a good opportunity for me to network and “put myself out there.”
And he left.
Dumbfounded, I went inside the sprawling mansion, into an empty foyer with beautiful marble floors. Wasn’t my taste, but whatever.
I walked through, out to the balcony that overlooked the backyard full of white-clad party-goers.
I descended the stairs when, halfway down, I ran into my childhood crush. He still tours with this boy band that he joined after the founding members sang about a man and a telephone. He was so kind and gracious, and thanked me for acknowledging him.
At the bottom of the stairs was Kim. No, not Lil.
I had seen her around Hollywood, but seeing her smiling and so free was a first.
You just never know what people are going through.
She came to me in a vision shortly after she passed. I was driving uber at the time.
I was headed West on Sunset and stopped at a light that usually backs up at N Beverly Glen Blvd. Iykyk. Suddenly, my left arm started tingling, then slightly burning. I started looking around to better gauge the cross streets. It was too dark to see initially, but as the traffic crept to the nearest intersection: Ah, Mapleton. Got it. Her features became more prominent. She was not happy. Her children’s father lived on that corner. She became increasingly agitated and circled the top of the house. The light turned green, and I proceeded with my drop-off.
In light of the recent charges against Sean “Diddy” Combs, folks have started asking fresh questions about the 2018 death of Kim Porter, his former partner and mother to three of his children. Officially, her death was ruled lobar pneumonia, and the coroner confirmed that in early 2019. She had flu-like symptoms in the days leading up to it, and the case was closed.
But now? With Diddy facing federal charges for sex trafficking and claims of abuse piling up, some people are side-eyeing that pneumonia story. Singer Al B. Sure! (father of Porter’s eldest, Quincy) has long suggested foul play and recently reignited public concern by claiming the circumstances of her death didn’t sit right. Even Diddy’s former bodyguard, Gene Deal, publicly said it’s time for her case to be re-examined.
Online, the theories are flying—from whispers of poisoning to suspicions about her missing personal devices. But not everyone agrees with the speculation.
In September 2024, Kim’s four children released a public statement calling all the conspiracy talk painful and false, making it clear they do not believe their mother was murdered, and want her name and memory left in peace.
So far, no law enforcement agency has reopened her case, and the original cause of death still stands. But the timing, the energy around Diddy’s current legal mess, and the eerie silences have people wondering: Did Kim Porter really die of pneumonia—or is there more to the story that hasn’t been told?
I know what and who revealed themselves to me that evening.
She was pissed and worried about her kids, particularly her daughters. Now we know why.
Kim was dancing with her friends and looked happy.
I hate that her life was cut short: whether it was pneumonia or over a man who hates women because he has mommy issues. Maybe not in this dimension, but the truth will eventually reveal itself.
I grabbed a chicken sausage link and headed back up to the balcony.
Nearing the end of the nervous scarf-down, I caught someone staring at me out the corner of my right eye. When our eyes met, he gave me that look. Wiping the corners of my mouth, I balled the napkin in my hand. Tightly fisted, I returned his gaze with what can only be described as confusion, anger…then hurt for his wife. While our eyes never unlocked, his attention became required elsewhere by the crowd of young women circling him to be the next casting couch candidate, or cut to the chase and become his next full-on side chick.
The few times I retold this story, each listener validated me, confirming that my story tracks.
One person said he could see the attraction, and slight resemblance to his wife.
A known equalizing, womanizing drunk…it more than explains why his former pro-football eldest son, turned actor, notoriously only credits his mother in interviews for his success.
I wound up running into a guy I met at an audition and he gave me a ride home.
Next Up in Part II: When the college grooming grows up but never evolves, what do you call it?
We follow the pipeline of patriarchy into adulthood—where the same men, now with mortgages and daughters, still weaponize silence, sex, and bro-code betrayal against the women they once called friends.
💫 A Gentle Invitation Before You Go
What you just read might have stirred something.
Maybe it cracked something open.
Maybe it made you remember. Or maybe it was just… a lot.
If you’re open, I want to offer you a soft landing.
A quick moment to call your energy home and bring your nervous system back to center.
Try this:
Close your eyes (if it’s safe). Drop your shoulders. Unclench your jaw.
Take a deep breath in… for 3 seconds.
Inhale what is yours.
Hold for 3 seconds.
Anchor into yourself.
Exhale for 3 seconds.
Release what is not yours to carry.
Place your hand on your chest or your belly.
Say, out loud or silently:
“I am here. I am safe. I return to myself now.”
“I call my energy back to me now—lovingly, gently, and fully.”
That’s it.
Take your time. Drink water. Stretch.
You’re back.
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Jehan Cicely | www.awakenedasshole.com
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