A fashion designer is suing Sean “Diddy” Combs, alleging that he threatened to kill her and dangled her off a 17th-floor balcony in 2016. In the lawsuit, which was filed last week in Los Angeles, Bryana “Bana” Bongolan seeks $10 million in damages for emotional distress, sexual battery, and false imprisonment at the hands of the embattled producer.
According to court documents obtained by Rolling Stone and People, Bongolan says she met Diddy through Ventura, whom she befriended at work in 2014. Then an aspiring designer, Bongolan believed Combs could offer her “once-in-a-lifetime” career opportunities and worked with him for two years, designing jackets for his record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, along with album covers, music videos, and more. But instead of advancing her fashion career, Bongolan says, working with Combs led her to “experience violence and abuse firsthand in professional settings.” She says she witnessed Combs abuse Ventura multiple times, including allegedly banging on her apartment door unannounced and throwing a large kitchen knife at the singer, who Bongolan says then threw one back at him in self-defense. Bongolan further claims she repeatedly saw Ventura with bruises and black eyes she said she got from Combs.
Eventually, Bongolan says, Combs began “directing his rage” at her, too. During a trip, Bongolan alleges Combs “became aggressive” with her and “forcibly fed” her a drug she now believes was ecstasy. She also recalled the producer cornering her and threatening her life during a photoshoot for Ventura. “I’m the motherfucking devil,” she alleges he told her. “You have no idea what I could do to you. I could kill you.” According to the suit, the threats escalated one night in September 2016, when Bongolan and her girlfriend were sleeping over at Ventura’s and awoke to the sound of Combs banging on the door. Bongolan instructed her girlfriend to hide in a locked backroom while Combs pursued her to the apartment balcony, where she says he “grabbed her, turned her back to his chest, and molested her by groping her breasts as she yelled to be left alone.” The suit says Combs then lifted Bongolan — who is four-foot-11 and was then around 100 pounds — up onto the banister while screaming, “Do you know what the fuck you did? Do you know what the fuck you did?” Ventura ran out of her bedroom and yelled at Combs to stop, at which point, Bongolan says, the producer pulled her back onto the balcony and slammed her onto a table. (Ventura referenced the alleged incident in her now-settled sexual abuse and sex-trafficking lawsuit against Combs, who she says picked up a woman “like a child” and dangled her over a 17th-floor balcony. Combs denied her claims.)
As with all the allegations and suits against him, Combs — who is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he awaits trial after pleading not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering charges — has issued a blanket denial. “Since last year, Ms. Bongolan has expressed an intention to sue Mr. Combs and has sought legal representation to pursue her claims,” a legal representative for Combs told Rolling Stone. “Mr. Combs firmly denies these serious allegations and remains confident they will ultimately be proven baseless.”
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