Aubrey O’Day claimed that former boss Sean “Diddy” Combs tried to control her appearance and was rarely sober while she was a member of Danity Kane.
“With Diddy, I saw multiple sides of him but I don’t know who I was ever talking to that was sober. There was always an element of something going on,” O’Day, 40, said on the forthcoming episode of Renee Graziano’s “Crysis Queen” podcast, a clip of which was shared by the Daily Mail on Tuesday, September 24.
According to O’Day — who was one-fifth of Danity Kane, the band formed by Diddy on MTV’s Making the Band 3, along with Aundrea Fimbres, D. Woods, Dawn Richard and Shannon Bex — after she was made a member of the group, Diddy was very particular about how she presented herself.
“He’s on camera telling me how much he hates it, but he’s off camera telling me all the ways I needed to be groomed properly, down to my toenails,” said the singer. “I was sent out of a studio session one time because my toes weren’t polished properly.”
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O’Day continued, “Diddy would bring me back to the studio at night and say, ‘Oh, I’ve just got [Danity Kane song] “Show Stopper” … you’re not on the first verse.’ The guy has someone else on the first verse and puts me on the bridge. He’s like, ‘You think that’s acceptable?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ I can’t tell a producer what to do with his own track. He was like, ‘You’re the looker of my band. You think I can start off this music video with this [other] girl?’”
In the clip, O’Day said she felt she was groomed by Diddy, 54, to conform to his image.
“They make you feel like … you get little bits of things that make you attracted and excited, and then once they’ve got your attention, they let you know about yourself in different ways,” she said. “It’s like the military, they break you down and build you back up into the soldier they need you to be for the country they need you to be fighting for.”
Us Weekly has reached out to representatives and an attorney for Diddy for comment.
In a September 5 interview on the “Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe” podcast, O’Day reflected on being fired from Danity Kane by Diddy during a live episode of Making the Band 4 in 2008.
“I was so young and so many things were put on me. I was fired on national television for being overly raunchy and promiscuous,” she said. “That’s actually like wrongful termination. That’s a lawsuit against a lot of people.”
O’Day has been an outspoken critic of her former Bad Boy Records boss over the last several months as Diddy has faced accusations of sexual assault and trafficking. The rapper was arrested on September 16 after being indicted on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied all of the accusations against him.
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“The purpose of justice is to provide an ending and allow us the space to create a new chapter,” O’Day shared via X after Diddy’s arrest on September 16.
The former Danity Kane member continued, “Women never get this. I feel validated. Today is a win for women all over the world, not just for me. Things are finally changing.”
