The third week of the federal criminal trial of Sean Diddy Combs has now wrapped up and it was another week of truly explosive and compelling and shocking testimony. I mean, this week we heard from people who were a part of the inner circle, not just his, but also Cassie Ventura. People who knew them personally were very close, whether it was Capricorn Clark, who knew him before she worked for him. Deonte Nash, the stylist for Diddy and Cassie, who got a front row seat to the violence and also was victimized, he says, himself. There were new shocking allegations from Diddy's former assistant as well, a woman known to the court only as Mia. That's a pseudonym to protect her identity. She claimed that Diddy physically and sexually assaulted her many times in the eight years that she worked for him and that she lived in a constant state of fear of him. Well, today we're hearing from somebody else who worked closely with Diddy: celebrity publicist Rob Shuter. He helped to shape Diddy's image and said that he saw very different sides of him and really the transformation and creation of him as well and it's given him some really sharp insights frankly into what Diddy might be feeling right now. I'm Laura Coats and this is Trial by Jury. Before we get into it with Rob, I have an update for us from my friend and colleague in the trenches of the courthouse, Elizabeth Wagmeister, who has been there all week. Wagmeester, break it down for us. I mean, this is the second day of Mia's testimony. Just walk us through what's been happening.

'All right, Laura, we have got to talk about Mia because I believe, based on my reporting in that courtroom, that Mia may have just emerged as the most critical witness in this entire case. And that may sound like a surprise to some people listening, because Cassie, of course, is the star witness of this case. And make no mistake, this trial would not be happening without Cassie had she not come forward. And Sue Diddy back in November 2023, this trial simply would not be occurring. But I think Mia may be more critical to help bolster these charges and to be the connective glue because Mia not only corroborated many parts of Cassie's account, but she has come forward as an alleged victim herself with horrific allegations of physical violence and also sexual violence, alleging that Combs raped her while she was employed by him. And why Mia is so critical is because she was not a romantic partner of Combs. So unlike Cassie and unlike Jane, who is the next anonymous government victim that we are going to hear from, this was not a long-term girlfriend. This was not former romantic partner. So that makes it difficult for the defense to have, what in these cases is typically the obvious defense, which is you were in love with him. Why did you stay with him? Now, on cross-examination, Brian Steele, who is one of Combs' defense attorneys, he did say, "why did you stay?," but in the context of why did you continue to work for him for so long? Why did you continue to stay in touch with him? Why do you have all these nice social media posts and nice messages with him? And I want to read you actually. Something that Mia said in response to Brian Steele on cross. She said quote, 'in an abusive relationship there's a cycle of violence. I was young and manipulated and eager to survive. I'm unraveling a lot of this now in therapy.' And I read that quote because that echoes what we heard from Dawn Hughes who was that expert witness who testified earlier in the trial. Don Hughes explain to the jury in her expert opinion and experience some typical behaviors among trauma victims and one of them is staying in touch with the alleged perpetrator or confiding in the perpetrator because what Dawn Hughes explained is that there is so much shame and guilt associated with sexual violence in particular that many times these alleged victims they don't I don't even want to admit that this happened to themselves, so why would they talk to someone else about it? It can be a tactic, a coping mechanism to say everything's fine because it almost makes you forget about it. Mia came off as a very sympathetic witness. Her voice was trembling, her hair was in front of her face so you couldn't really see her face. It was hard for her to speak and to get through sentences at some point. And, you know, I just think throughout my course of coverage from the Me Too movement. We've really seen a shift in society where people do have a greater education and greater understanding of violence and sexual violence and domestic violence, and they do understand some of these behaviors among these victims.

Rob Shuter, a longtime publicist to some of the biggest stars. I mean, the roster is legit, including being a publicist for Sean Diddy Combs. You might know from his podcast Naughty But Nice, well, he worked with Diddy for a number of years, and he's here with me now to talk about that experience. Rob, I have been so interested in talking to you because you worked for Diddy, not just Diddy. You worked for so many people in the industry. And this trial has really become even more than about the individual players in this case. It has become a commentary about the industry more broadly. Everyone wants to know who knew what, when, where, if they did, was it enabling, all these different things. Let's get into a little bit about your role as a publicist because we are hearing a lot about the way reputations work and how they can be maintained and of course destroyed. Talk to me about what the work of a publicist is like for somebody as high profile as, say, a Sean Diddy Combs.

Yeah, when I first started in the industry, I started as a receptionist. I just answered the phones of this massive PR company. And it was back when we actually had to use telephones. It was over 20 years ago. So nobody had cell phones. So if you wanted to call your publicist, you had to call the main number and speak to me. And I was a really curious, nosy, some would say, individual. And I would listen and I would learn and I quickly built my way up to being quite a powerful publicist. I represented Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, John Bon Jovi, the dear, related Kate Spade, who I still miss. And then Diddy, diddy was my first client that I got that was a superstar, though. He was somebody that changed my career, changed my life, mainly for the positive. I've got to be honest. At the time, he gave me an enormous amount of power. It was quite difficult to get to Puff. I was one of the gatekeepers. If you wanted, Puff, on the cover of your magazine or on your TV show, on your morning show, on your night show, you'd have to come through me. And I would make the decision. And so suddenly this kid who had very little experience was managing, was being the gatekeeper to somebody really, really powerful. And I gotta be honest with you, it was intoxicating. It was absolutely delicious. I went from being a nobody to suddenly getting the best tables in restaurants to getting my phone calls returned. I was talking to people who I watched on television, hosts, anchors of shows were calling me because they wanted Diddy on as a guest. And so the time I was with him, It was like joining the circus and the ringmaster was Diddy.

'Was it zoo-like in terms of the people you were working for, particularly Diddy? His reputation seems to be, through trial, particularly violent, volatile temper. What was it like working with him specifically?

'Diddy started off, actually, as the opposite. He's from a middle-class background. He was never really a rapper. And in the real rap world, in the hardcore rap world at least 20 years ago, they thought of him as a fake, as somebody that had no business, rapping about lives on the street, rapping about really important issues to a community because he grew up in a very different way. And so when I was working with Diddy, It felt as if we had to fake it all the time. We had to really try and forgive the expression, but thug him up. Try and make him look like a bad boy. That's why he named his company Bad Boy, because he had to overcompensate for the truth of the matter is, which he really wasn't, at least on the surface, a bad-boy. This was a guy that knew how to be really comfortable around his fans, but also in board rooms. That explains his business success as well as his street success.

I tell you, there's a whole psychological book to be written about the idea of thugging one up, as you say, or trying to present to the public who you wanted them to see. And when you said overcompensate, you took the words right out of my head. Do you think that the overcompensation process contributed to behavior that was problematic?

He started to believe his own hype. He's not the first celebrity to do that. Hopefully other celebrities don't go to this extreme, but I've worked with a lot of famous people who get in this little bubble. I think politicians have talked about this. They're in this bubble. If suddenly you become very, very successful, if suddenly people are saying hello to you on the street, who you don't know, you start to believe it. And I saw just the short time I was with Puffy, just a few years. I saw the transformation. He started to believe his own hype.

'What did that translate to? Did his behavior towards the business change, employees change, did he become more demanding, more prima donna-ish?

Yet he was always a diva, he always had a very large ego. He was always a bossy boots. He knew exactly what he wanted. And when you become really successful by driving your own train, you listen to other people less and less. We see this all the time. People that are really, really successful don't really want to collaborate and then what they can say to you with a lot of legitimacy here Laura is I'm pretty successful I've done this I've become successful by doing it my way so why would I listen to you? So the time I was with Puff technically I was his publicist. He was his own publicist. He came up with a strategy. He came up with the press releases. He come up with the parties which were really his way to get himself involved in New York society. This was before the Met Ball and he wanted to create hype and so he decided I'm gonna throw a party every six months and it's gonna be the hottest party in New York and people who probably wouldn't return my calls are gonna return my calls now because they won a ticket to my party. That was all him. It was not me. It was not an assistant. It was not a manager. It was Puff.

'So who had the final sign-off, say, for a press release or...?

'No, everything, Diddy. Diddy had the sign-off on what he wore, what he, when he spoke, what interviews he did. He had the sign-off on everything. He was a total, total control freak and he often worked in his favor. He knew how to do this. I worked with Diddy for a while, I've covered him for, for over 20 years now. I still to this day, and I don't mean this as any disrespect, I don't know what he does. I think he sells T-shirts. I think he sold vodka. He threw a party. I don't really know what did he does, but what he does do is he makes himself the center. He's our generation's Barnum. He puts on a show, and it's a show we all wanna be a part of.

I'm fascinated by particularly the psychology of the transformation when one is successful in terms of creating the myth and the legend that you refuse to listen to anyone else or allow somebody else to hold and pull the strings. In the overall empire that he was able to build, did you see that he is the one who was the puppet master?

'Oh, absolutely. At the time, I would have said the genius. He was the brains behind the operation. I'd never seen anybody, and I know a lot of famous people, I've never seen anyone that enjoys being famous as much as Puffy. It's a 24-hour job. You and I might have a hobby. You and might like to go to a restaurant. We might have friends we like to hang out with. In fact, most regular people do. Not superstars. Not people at that level of the game. He gets up in the morning and the first thing Puff thinks about is Puff. Before he goes to sleep at night, he thinks about Puff In the middle of the night, if he has a dream, it's most likely about himself and he had his phone always next to his bed and he would make notes and texts So it would not be unusual to get a text, an email from Puffy at four in the morning. He spent 24 hours a day thinking about Puffy.

Was he obsessive about the people that were extensions of his empire, his artists that he signed, people who he was in relationships with, his children, family, how did he view all those extensions?

The number one priority was loyalty. And so he didn't mind if you were not very talented. I was not a very good publicist. But at the time I was loyal. I was young. He could control me. I had certain skills. But what was important to Puffy was that he, his vision, would be implemented. He had the money to hire much more successful, much more seasoned publicists than me. I was in my 20s. But he liked me because I was loyal, I did what I was told. And another thing that he liked, and there's a shallowness to this, but it's all part of that image conversation we're having, he liked a gay British publicist. He thought it classed him up. He used to call me, my nickname in the office, Mary Poppins, and he said it with affection. It wasn't a homophobic slur, it really wasn't. He said it in affection, he loved, he thought it was so fun to have a British publicists on the phone, representing him, representing bad boy I was a piece of his puzzle and it wasn't just me, everybody.

We'll be right back.

How did people view, in your estimation, you would hear, obviously you talk about the intoxication and the access that people wanted to have, but you probably also got a true sense of how people viewed him, how they saw him. How did the New York public and the entertainment public view Sean Diddy Combs?

I felt the people that I rub shoulders with, and it's a very specific industry I'm in, it was never about how they felt towards him. It was how he made them feel. There is a lot of narcissists who live in New York and LA, and he made them feel special. He gave them a golden ticket to the party of the year in the same way that when you get invited to that Met Ball, you feel great. It doesn't really matter how you feel about Anna Wintour or the ball. It's how you feel and you feel like Cinderella. And that was Puffy's skill. He sold fantasies. He sold dreams. None of the dreams were necessarily truthful, but it made you feel great. And so I understand, having worked for him, how he potentially got away with this for so long because he arguably is the most charismatic person I've ever met. There was something magical about Puff.

More than the celebrity and the intoxication about the proximity to power, you say it was him specifically that had that magnetism?

Combination of both. If you give somebody that's very charismatic a lot of power, they're almost unstoppable. And I've had this conversation, I'm on this group text with many several past employees and we didn't see it. And now the conversation on the text is.

You didn't see what?

We didn't see the abuse.

You never saw violence occur?

We saw the screaming and the shouting, but I've had celebrities bark at me much, much louder than Diddy ever did. And so we've all had a bad boss. I think it was, it was no more extreme than that. And now we're asking ourselves on this group text, did we not see it? Or did we not want to see it?

'That's interesting because so many people who've even been on the stand as former employees have talked about their weighing almost of a cost-benefit analysis. On the one hand They were seeing things that horrified them, or were experiencing it. On the other hand they talked about him as if he was a singular business school. And that he was in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity educational endeavor even to be beside him. And they seem to compartmentalize the fear the frustration the annoyance and they would balance that against their own ambition. When you talk about the intoxication and the qualities that that would create, the people who were around him you saw, what was their end game?

Their game was, most of them, including me, were working class, middle class kids, who just shouldn't have been at the Oscars. Who shouldn't of been on red carpets. Who shouldn't of been sitting at Dolce and Gabbana's fashion show. who shouldn't be getting phone calls from Vogue magazine or the head of Estee Lauder Cosmetics. He opened up Pandora's box. He opened a world to all of us that was almost impossible to walk away from. And so I do understand that. And I think the best example a friend of mine gave, who worked for him, said Cassie tried to escape once. And we saw it, it was on a video, a video that was exclusive on CNN, that this horrific video. We saw what happened when she tried to escaped. It was something I think everybody feared. They weren't just staying because of the perks. They were staying because the fear was, if you left, everything ended.

Was the fear violence? Yes. Was the that this gatekeeper who had convinced, as you say, the world that he was important and the Willy Wonka handing out the golden tickets, was the fear that that gate would close forever?

Yes, and there was a fear of violence. I did not speak out. I did not do interviews. I'd been asked to do interviews from when this scandal first broke. I was a little frightened. I'm a little bit frightened that he's a violent man. We've seen that through the trial. And if these stories are true, this is something we should be concerned about. And I think people can be full of vengeance. And if Puffy does get off, I know him. He will have a list. He will people that protected him. And people that didn't.

Wow, Rob, so compelling, thank you. I'm gonna think about this intoxication and this magnetism, because as I've talked to you about this before, and will again, this trial is increasingly becoming more than just about the individuals.

It's Becoming About America.

'It's about America. It's about the haves and the have-nots, about ambition. It is about violence and power and the imbalance of it.

Yeah, absolutely. It's that big question: what would you tolerate? How much would you tolerate to get ahead? For me to become important, what would I give up for that? And it's a very tough question. I think it's a question if we all answer truthfully, we might shock ourselves. I certainly know that I've tolerated friends who have treated me badly, who powerful and rich in a way that I haven't treated friends who have treated me badly who have no power.

Fascinating. Rob, thank you. We'll be back next week to bring you up to date on this trial that continues. In the meantime, be sure to follow Trial by Jury wherever you get your podcasts from. This episode was produced by Grace Walker, Graelyn Brashear, and Alexandra Sadler. Our technical director is Dan DeZula, and the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Lickteig. With support from Andrea Lewis, Mike Figliola, Eryn Mathewson, Hank Butler, Robert Mathers, Alex Manassari, and Lisa Namerow. I'm Laura Coates, and I'm here for it.