“What Sean Combs is being accused of is not rare. He’s not an anomaly.”
For a yr within the early noughties, Elisabeth Ovesen was a hip-hop video star dancing alongside among the greatest names within the enterprise. It was an period of big-budget music movies stuffed with, in rap particularly, cash, automobiles, and ladies.
She stored diaries. In 2005, she printed Confessions Of A Video Vixen, recounting her troublesome upbringing and relationships earlier than discovering a seemingly glamorous lifeline to monetary safety.
Underneath the title Karrine Steffans, she detailed her experiences on video units as a 22-year-old girl, her relationships and sexual encounters with rappers, different music stars and executives. Most of her personal experiences involving well-known stars have been consensual, she says; the e book is a cautionary story a few feted trade, her tales highlighting misogyny and energy imbalances when it comes to age and standing, how ladies have been used and discarded, fairly than legal behaviour.
However Ovesen says she was additionally conscious of a a lot darker facet to the music trade, and Hollywood usually.
Within the wake of the #MeToo motion – and most not too long ago the fees filed within the US in opposition to rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, which he has strenuously denied – she says she desires individuals to know there are others “getting away” with comparable behaviour and crimes.
Her phrases echo these of lawyer Tony Buzbee, who has filed a number of lawsuits in opposition to Combs. He has additionally claimed A-listers are paying off victims to keep away from being publicly named.
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Pic: AP
‘Every part that is popping out wasn’t a secret’
The lads determined she would go to his home, she says. “It was kind of like, ‘send her’. In retrospect now I realise how weird that is.”
She says this was shortly after Combs’ break-up with Jennifer Lopez in 2001. “He was very sweet and very docile with me and very respectful. The next morning we had brunch at his house… again, [he was] pleasant, warm.” She says she went to different events with Combs and he was all the time the identical.
However he knew she stored diaries, she claims. “So my experiences with him are a lot different than hundreds of other people’s… I have seen him flare up. I have seen things that did not involve me.”
These are usually not her tales to inform, she says. “I don’t want to overshadow actual victims. I’m nobody’s victim.”
Nonetheless, Ovesen says she grew to become conscious of the hip-hop star’s alleged behaviour, his abuse of former girlfriend Cassie, which he publicly apologised for, and the claims of “freak-off” events detailed within the fees in opposition to him.
“I knew what kind of person he was to other people. Everything that’s coming out now about Sean wasn’t a secret… him and Cassie, that was an open secret in LA, in the industry. Everyone knew. The issue with something like that is that if someone says, ‘yeah, I was there, I’ve seen it. I know for sure’. Then the question becomes, well, what were you doing there?”
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Elisabeth Ovesen, previously referred to as Karrine Steffans, pictured after the discharge of the e book, in 2006. Pic: JSSImages/BEImages
Misogyny and abuse within the hip-hop trade, and within the wider music trade – Hollywood usually – is rife, Ovesen says.
“If we’re looking at this one person and the industry this person is in, now let’s look at all the men who are not saying anything at all,” she says. “I want to be very clear that what Sean is being accused of is not rare. He’s not an anomaly… the behaviour is learned and perpetuated.”
Ovesen says some males she knew from the trade on the time had a household residence – “and then there’s a party house”. Medicine have been rife, she says, and she or he witnessed heroin, cocaine and crack being taken “by prominent celebrity men”.
Girls are handled as objects and infrequently undergo sexual abuse, she says. Some males too, and under-age girls and boys, she claims.
Artists “have the same agents, the same managers, the same handlers, the same accountants… they have the same friends. They share jets. They use each other’s houses. They share women. They share secrets. It’s not [just] a Sean Combs problem, it is a worldwide issue. It’s about men with money, men with power.”
When Ovesen arrived in LA, she was on the lookout for dancing work. Being “discovered” for music movies, with cost of 1000’s of {dollars} for a day or two on set, would set her up. However she says she was by no means naïve concerning the trade and in addition acknowledges that lots of her experiences have been “fun”.
“I always knew what it was. I always knew why I was there. Women were being used as props and to make the men look good, and we were disposable and not treated with respect, for the most part. But coming from my particular background – having been an exotic dancer – that didn’t deter me or bother me at the time.”
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Ovesen’s e book, Confessions Of A Video Vixen, printed by Harper Collins
CCTV cameras and NDAs
That is not Ovesen’s world, she factors out. She has printed a number of books since her first, and has additionally given lectures about her experiences. Nonetheless, she says she has buddies within the trade who say issues have not modified.
She claims she went to accommodate events and woke to “screaming in the middle of the night – women being beaten, slapped, pushed around”, in addition to males being abused, and closeted artists who really feel “shame”, which turns to anger, “around sexual proclivities”.
Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are signed and persons are typically paid off, she says. “It’s not rare or weird, it’s just the way it always has been, where the men do awful things and then they pay people off.” NDAs have been typically introduced on the doorways to movie star properties earlier than events. Ovesen says she signed one herself on one event in 2000, however refused after this.
“They have cameras everywhere,” she says, as can be typical for safety of an costly property. “Not only is that NDA going to tell you, whatever you see here stays in this house, it’s also going to explain if anything happens to you, you can’t sue. And there’s also a clause about any videotaping.”
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Pic: iStock
Ovesen claims there are distinguished actors, artists, producers and executives all concerned in comparable behaviour. She by no means witnessed an alleged “freak-off” get together – as a result of, she says once more, Combs was conscious she stored a diary. “But did I know about them? Yes. Did I hear about them? Yes.”
There are others who’ve “their own version”, she says. “I’m thinking of one actor in particular – an Oscar-winning actor”.
She says she was referred to as a “whore” and a liar when she printed her e book, and within the years afterwards. Folks have been “angry I discussed men they revered in a way that didn’t uphold that reverence”, she says. However nothing was sugarcoated, even “my willing participation. I didn’t try to make myself look good, I just told the truth”.
Ovesen wished individuals to know what the trade was like. “Women are shamed about our consensual sex, we’re shamed about our non-consensual sex. Women are shamed no matter what they do.”
For the reason that rise of the #MeToo motion, she has seen a change within the response, from youthful ladies discovering her for the primary time. She is pissed off there needed to be a change in any respect, however happy for young women, she says. Subsequent yr, she is going to launch an up to date model of her e book, marking 20 years because it was printed.
“I want this new generation to understand how important it is to believe women, to support each other.”
What’s Combs accused of?
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Pic: AP Picture/Suzanne Plunkett 2000
Combs was arrested on suspicion of racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking in September and has remained in jail forward of a trial at the moment set for Might, having been denied bail.
The hip-hop mogul has pleaded not responsible to fees that he coerced and abused ladies for years with assistance from a community of associates and workers, whereas silencing victims by blackmail and violence – together with kidnapping, arson and bodily beatings.
He’s additionally going through a number of civil lawsuits, with one lawyer saying he’s representing dozens of accusers. Combs says his sexual relationships have been consensual, and denies all wrongdoing.
Earlier this week, it emerged that rapper Jay-Z has been accused of raping a 13-year-old lady after the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000, allegedly alongside Combs. A federal lawsuit – which initially solely named Combs – was refiled so as to add Jay-Z, whose actual title is Shawn Carter.
“These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!!” he mentioned. “Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?
“These alleged victims would deserve actual justice if that have been the case.”
The rapper, who has three children with his wife Beyonce, continued: “My solely heartbreak is for my household. My spouse and I must sit our youngsters down, one among whom is on the age the place her buddies will certainly see the press and ask questions concerning the nature of those claims, and clarify the cruelty and greed of individuals. I mourn one more lack of innocence.
“Only your network of conspiracy theorists, fake physics, will believe the idiotic claims you have levied against me that, if not for the seriousness surrounding harm to kids, would be laughable.”
