Cassie R&B singer and model

Cassie Ventura is known for her singing and good looks.



But lately Cassie created some buzz by shaving some of her beautiful hair. She told The Boombox: "It was really weird and hilarious and I was [on] an adrenaline rush when it was happening. I was like If I'm going to do this, I'm going to go all the way! Hair grows back. It's not the end of the world, and it ended up looking kinda' cool. Whenever we go somewhere if I have to look a little different I can just put my hair over [the shaved area]."

Cassie's mom donated the cut-off hair to the charity 'Locks of Love,' which makes wigs for sick children that cannot afford them. Some people hated her new look while other loved it; actress Lauren London commented "Only my sis can rock a style that bold and be THAT beautiful doing it! Love it!" Cassie set a trend with her half-shaved head; singer Rihanna, MTV host La La Vasquez, singer Solange Knowles and actress Demi Moore all copied the new look.



Cassie became well-known for her hit 2006 sexy dance track Me & U, which reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100. Cassie made Me & U available on her MySpace page; it sold over 1 million digital downloads and she became a popular Internet celebrity with thousands of friends requests. "We were having fun in the studio. We did it at the end of April 2005. In May I went out to Germany. That's where the buildup started with the whole MySpace thing and people building it up on the Internet, so we carried that out and continued to post on the Internet."

Cassie had teamed up with producer Ryan Leslie for her music career, and riding the success of her single, she went on tour to Japan, France, and Dubai. But her subsequent single Long Way 2 Go and debut album Cassie were not as successful. Cassie's live performances on MTV's TRL and 106 & Park were also criticized for being lip-synched and nervous.



More problems rose for Cassie when a racy version of the Me & U video, which Cassie called 'unofficial', was leaked online. In the clip, Cassie is getting very intimate with a man, singing in her bra and panties, pulling the man's pants down.



"They call me 'D-list', 'America's favorite non-singer', or they say 'She needs to go back to modeling'. Oh I've heard it all," Cassie told Complex magazine (above). The most hurtful things said about her early success: "That I slept my way into the industry. I think that's really vicious. If it had nothing to with talent, at least it had something to do with charm. But it was never jumping into bed with somebody. That's just gross."

She was born Cassandra Ventura on August 26, 1986, in New London, Connecticut. Cassie got her good looks from her Filiopino father and her mother's racial blending of Mexican, African-American, and West Indian genes. "When I used to tell people I wanted to sing, they'd say: Oh, your voice isn't good enough. You don't want it that bad. So instead of wallowing, I took to modeling. That was just to get somewhere in the industry."



Cassie with the Victoria's Secret girls in Miami. Cassie modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, Target and Delias swimwear and outerwear, while studying at the Williams School on the Connecticut College campus. Cassie, who looks to Gwen Stefani and Eva Mendes as style icons, moved to New York city after graduating school. She deferred her acceptance into Pace University and focused on her music career.



Cassie made her acting debut in the dance movie Step Up 2: The Streets, and regretted her lack of preparation: "I don't think I took enough classes. Reacting to five other people is completely different than being with an acting coach."



Cassie is 5'7" tall, has appeared in magazines like Seventeen, and has posed in bikinis for Complex. Recently topless photos of the model and singer were leaked online when someone hacked into her email. "I took the pictures and sent them," Cassie said, adding that they were meant for her unnamed boyfriend. "I don't even have them anymore, that's the crazy part about it."




Cassie Ventura has her share of tattoos on that beautiful body; a star on her upper left thigh, a tribal dragon on her foot, the letter 'V' under her upper right arm, and a cursive 'C' tattooed on her wrist.



Cassie has admitted in the past: "I am not somebody like a John Legend who has a gorgeous voice. I say all the time, the music industry isn't the same anymore and selling records isn't enough. You have to build yourself as a brand." Cassie latest single Must Be Love featuring Diddy was released to radio earlier this year. Her sophomore release Electro Love hits stores later this year. Drugs and alcohol won't lead this singer and model astray, as Cassie says: "I got all the partying out of my system when I moved to New York."