Rapper Ali B denies sexually assaulting, raping three women; Man arrested in court

Rapper Ail B immediately denied all allegations of rape and sexual assault against him at the start of his trial in the court in Hilversum on Wednesday. He is accused of two counts of sexual assault and two counts of rape of three women. All sexual contact was consensual and never under duress, the rapper said. A man was arrested in court for disrupting the trial shortly after it started.

The charges against Ali B are not connected to the television program The Voice of Holland, though his arrest did follow a BOOS broadcast revealing widespread sexually transgressive behavior on the program. One of the victims, Jill Helena, did participate in The Voice in 2013, but her sexual assault happened five years later. Another woman stated that Ali B sexually assaulted and raped her at a writers' camp in Heiloo in 2018. And singer Ellen ten Damme said the rapper raped her in 2014 when she took part in the program Ali B en de Muziekkaravaan.

Ali B read a statement in court but had to stop several times because he was crying, NU.nl reports. He said he had ended up in a nightmare after he received a letter from Tim Hofman of BOOS, accusing him of rape while he worked for The Voice of Holland. According to Ali B, that is not true, but he has already been condemned in the media.

The rapper said that this was the first time he had been accused of a sex crime, and he found it terrifying. He had to confess that he cheated on his partner and was scared of losing his family, he said. He had panic attacks and sleepless nights, he said, blaming the press for a lack of critical journalism. “I felt such deep despair that I thought it would be better for my family if I no longer existed,” Ali B said. “Death felt warmer than life. But because of my faith, I would never commit suicide.”

Jill Helena said in her charges against Ali B that he had taken her to a remote forest path in the Amsterdamse Bos after a show in Monnickendam, where they both performed. She said she told him in advance that she did not want to have sex with him. But B pushed her to help him masturbate. “I did it because I wanted it to be over. I felt dirty,” the singer told the police. Helena only went to the police after the BOOS broadcast about The Voice because B said in response that he had never had a sexual relationship with a candidate.

“You abused me Ali, you abused my trust, my gullibility," she said in court Wednesday. "No is no. You just kidnapped me to a place and sexually assaulted me there. And then dropped me off at my car like a piece of trash. In the years that followed, I struggled with my feelings. Every time I saw your face on TV, all the memories and feelings came flooding back. I would become angry, sad, scared, desperate. And felt powerlessness and frustration."

According to B, that’s not how it happened. “It hurts me incredibly much. It is in great contrast to what we had together.” He denied that she sexually gratified him with her hand in the car, saying he would have remembered that. He said the two of them had an affair that started around the final of The Voice in 2013, getting together several times a year. He said she never gave a signal that she didn’t want to participate. "The initiative came from both sides. We had an agreement that she would not send me any messages to prevent my wife from finding out that we were having an affair."

Ellen ten Damme detailed her claim that B. raped her while they were in Morocco for a television production. "I didn't ask for anything. Not that night in Morocco, not of the police, not for this lawsuit and certainly not for a media circus. What happened in Morocco, happened. I never felt the need to report it so as to ring a giant bell or to report it, but I have never made it a secret," the singer said.

Ten Damme testified that B. attacked her and tried to penetrate her despite her fighting back. Still, she said there was a moment where B. managed to briefly rape her. Her manager said that the following day, Ten Damme was "like a zombie" and was very withdrawn.

"It's just unreal that I would do something like that: I find it unreal at all that anyone would do something like that. I find it surreal what she said," B. said in response.

The third victim, who said she was sexually assaulted at a camp in Heiloo, said she was in love with Bokoesam, another Dutch rap musician. "He asked me to come to the writers' camp and arranged a taxi. He also asked me to have sex with his mates. That question hurt, but I didn't want to disappoint him," she said.

It was while she was having sex with another musician, Ronnie Flex, that B. penetrated her vagina with his fingers. "I got angry and immediately asked you if you had ever heard of consent. I had recently removed your hand from my crotch in the living room downstairs. I did not want to have sex with you. But suddenly and completely unexpectedly, those fingers were inside me. It was intimidating and humiliating," she testified.

B. denied all allegations against him, and the case will continue on Thursday. He said he would have rather sat with the victims to discuss what happened, instead of being in a courtroom.

Man arrested in court

After the rapper read his statement, there was a commotion in the public gallery. The police ended up removing a man from the courtroom, arresting him when he resisted, a court spokesperson told ANP. According to the court, the man arrived about half an hour after the trial started. “He was assigned a place in the public gallery. He then hit the window and started shouting,” the spokesperson said.

The judge ordered the man to sit down and be quiet. “Despite this request and several requests from colleagues to leave, he remained standing and behaved disruptively. The police then asked him to leave the court. The man resisted, after which he was arrested.” The hearing was briefly interrupted while this happened.