A self-described “independent male companion” who last year took legal action against Sean “Diddy” Combs and Cassie Ventura is disputing the latter’s argument that recent comments he made amounted to “explicit threats of violence.”
In June, the plaintiff in this matter, Clayton Howard, was criticized by Cassie’s legal team in a letter to a California judge, with lawyers arguing that a video he had posted on social media included both “defamatory statements” and “explicit threats of violence.” In response, Cassie’s legal team sought to ensure that any additional extrajudicial statements be formally barred.
“Mr. Howard directly threatened Ms. Ventura, stating: ‘Bitch, I’m going to burn you out with fire’ and also stated, regarding both [attorney Douglas H. Wigdor] and Ms. Ventura, ‘He wants to play stupid games, you want to play stupid games, you can win stupid prizes.’ These constitute true threats of violence,” Cassie’s lawyers argued in the letter, filed June 10 and viewed by Complex.
Howard, however, has denied this assessment of his remarks. As first spotted by TMZ, and since seen in court docs viewed by Complex, he copped to sharing the nine-minute video in question to TikTok on June 7, but pushed back against the overarching argument made by Cassie’s legal team. Still, he has agreed to “refrain from public commentary” moving forward.
“I have never threatened physical harm or violence against [Cassie Ventura], against any member of her legal team, or against any person, whether in the video or otherwise,” Howard wrote, per a June 16-dated filing. “Nothing I said in the video was said with the intent to threaten, intimidate, or place any person in fear of physical harm, and I did not consciously disregard any risk that my words would be understood that way.”
Howard went on to zero in on the emphasis Cassie’s legal team placed on his “burn you out with fire” and “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” remarks, arguing that neither was meant to suggest violence. Instead, the former was a “figure of speech,” per Howard, while the latter was an example of him using “a common idiom referring to consequences.”
In an amended complaint filed last October, Howard alleged that he was the victim of “an eight-year period of systematic sexual exploitation, trafficking, and abuse” starting in 2009. Both Diddy and Cassie were named as defendants in the civil case, as was Bad Boy Records.
Central to Howard’s claims were his assertion that a “misleading public narrative” had taken shape, namely one that he claimed unfairly favored Cassie, whom he argued was “not merely a victim” but “an active and engaged participant.”
Last year, Cassie, who was previously in a romantic relationship with Diddy, was among those who took the stand against the mogul in a trial that ultimately resulted in him being found guilty of Mann Act violations.
Diddy, 56, is currently scheduled to be released from prison in February 2028.
