Elisabeth Ovesen, AKA Karrine Steffans, Said She Was "Gifted" to Diddy

Author Elisabeth Ovesen opened up in an interview with The Daily Beast, published in September 2024, detailing her connection to disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs. If you don’t recognize the name, it’s because most know her by her pen name, Karrine Steffans, author of Confessions of a Video Vixen (2005).

Elisabeth told the media outlet that she was first introduced to Diddy in 2001 but had already made a name for herself after appearing in Jay-Z’s hit “Hey Papi,” which was released in 2000. Elisabeth recalled, “In retrospect, I realized that I was given to him as a gift by another executive.” Now, people are wondering what kind of connection Elisabeth and Diddy actually had.

Simply put, Elisabeth says she was "gifted" to the rap mogul after encountering him outside a club around 3 a.m. His car pulled up, and he asked Irv Gotti, founder of the Murder Inc. label, and Ja Rule who she was. "He asked who I was, and the men spoke for me.”

The conversation then shifted to Diddy telling "the men," as she referred to them in her memoir, to "send her to my house." She explained, "And that was it. I got the order to go to his house, and that was the first time he and I spent time." Elisabeth says she was well aware of the expectations that had been set for her, but she went in with the intention of keeping her "eyes open" so that she could document what really went down in a place where "nearly everything goes."

She described one of Diddy's parties at his Star Island mansion as similar to The Great Gatsby. That included men dressed in tuxedos, women walking around topless, champagne being passed around, and "trays of hors d’oeuvres and drug pills being passed around on the inside." She recalled, “You choose your pill, you take your champagne, and that’s your vibe for the night." She added, “It’s f--king intense.”

But that was only one side of the party. Another happened behind closed doors, "in which men were inflicting power and pain over women," the source writes.

While she didn't dive into what that entailed, she mentioned that seeing the viral video of Diddy and Cassie in a hotel was all too familiar and called it "triggering." “I know exactly how that feels. I know exactly. I know exactly how that feels," Elisabeth said of the events that played out between Diddy and Cassie. She revealed she had endured abuse from some of the rappers she dated.

While no names were given, Elisabeth claimed in her memoir that she had relations with Jay-Z, DMX, and Diddy, but romantic connections with Lil Wayne, Method Man, and Bobby Brown.

It's unclear to what extent her relationship with Diddy went, but she did mention in her book that while out one night with the rapper and friend Xzibit, she took ecstasy and remembered him describing her to Xzibit as the type of woman who'd get you “on tape with fingers in your booty.” She said that description was "so weird" considering "we hadn’t even had sex, Diddy and I."

Although Elisabeth clarified to The Daily Beast that she was not a victim of Diddy's, she stated, "His victims deserve the space and time to discuss what happened in those rooms." Later in the interview, she explained that Diddy aside, there is a deeper problem that reaches beyond "music or hip-hop." She said, "Men who hate women, men who hate who they are, who can’t admit to their sexuality, who are pretending to be straight when they’re not. And they hate women because they can’t."

This isn’t the first time Elisabeth has attempted to come forward to discuss her connection to the industry, but some of her initial attempts seemed to have been a bust. On Instagram, she acknowledged that with all the allegations against Diddy coming to light, people are now flocking to her for interviews and comments, and she isn’t giving in. "I said everything I needed to say 20, 15, and 10 years ago and you all called me a liar. You called me crazy, bipolar, a whore, and a bitter b---h."

However, Elisabeth is releasing the 20th-anniversary edition of her book, Confessions of a Video Vixen, on March 4, 2025, which will include new chapters, per an Instagram post shared on Sept. 24, 2024.