In Netflix’s documentary series “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” close associates of Diddy share their various experiences working with the fallen mogul in a professional and personal capacity throughout the years. For Aubrey O’Day, who Diddy signed to his girl group Danity Kane as part of “Making the Band” in the early aughts, it was the culmination of years of speaking out about her former boss and the trauma she’s endured.
“Today, I have this fear of the grieving process or putting things together or living with the limited perspective I have now, understanding the full context through the documentary and with the world watching,” she tells Variety. “When I woke up early this morning, all of these thoughts were starting to consume my mind.”
O’Day, 41, is discussing her participation in the documentary — which was directed by Alexandria Stapleton and executive produced by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson — just days after wrapping the 2025 dates of Danity Kane’s “The Untold Chapter Tour” in late December, a reunion that saw her taking the stage once again with D. Woods and Aundrea Fimbres. She explains that she didn’t realize how overwhelming it would be to revisit the foundation of her music career amid the release of the documentary, in which she shares how Diddy fired her from the group for rebuffing his sexual advances and, in a shocking moment, reads an affidavit from a woman who claims she witnessed Diddy sexually assaulting her while she was inebriated.
But, as she says, O’Day is using her appearance on the documentary to open up conversations about abuse not just in the music industry, but beyond. “I’m overall wanting the behavior to stop across the board,” she says. “We’re having open discussions to this day about behaviors that are very similar. And I’m wondering what we as a society are going to do about them.”
You were one of the first people to be vocal publicly about Sean Combs. It’s been going on for years, and the reaction may not have always been as warm or supportive as it is now. Do you feel a sense of vindication in all of this?
You know, I’ve gone back to that so much and my answer is, yes, I have been speaking out for 20 years. I did it in ways that I could based on the things that I had to sign contractually to get out of my 360 deal. I did it a lot less then. I started over the years as I started to understand myself and build my own career away from “Making the Band” and Danity Kane and Diddy. I started to understand the power of my voice differently, and so I spoke bigger about it.
But even when I look back at something like “Celebrity Apprentice,” this clip always comes back around during election time where Trump is praising Diddy and saying he’s the greatest guy and encouraging me to say that as well — and I refuse to say it. And I noticed even then I wasn’t so far removed from that situation, but I wasn’t willing to compromise my integrity even in front of a man that had all the power. So I think it’s been very consistent.
Watching your part of the docuseries was, frankly, very difficult, not only because of what you’re talking about, but also watching you share that with the world. Why was it important for you to read the affidavit publicly?
So when this whole thing occurred, the very first thing that happened in my world is every single person that was making a documentary ran straight to me and offered me the world. And I would have conversations, and I would notice, “Oh, these people are just wanting to make a hit piece on Diddy. These people seem interesting, but I’ve spoken with all the producers and I’ve asked to meet all of the editing bay and there is no Black representation here. How would they ever be able to tell a culture piece and not have any representation on the production side or the editing bay?” I didn’t trust that.
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I was talking with Alex a lot about everything, and she was kind of the last one that came through and had her deal with Netflix. And then she was the last person that got to me. But when I got on with her, she’s just such an incredible, incredible human. The way that she listened to me, the way that she validated the things that I said, the way that she listened to the things that had happened to me prior to doing the documentary and advised me that I’m not experiencing the way that doing a documentary on this project would look. It almost sounded like I’m experiencing what a reality TV version of this would look like, which I’m very used to.
So when I spoke with her, she had such patience, respect. She knew and understood. She knew all of the connections. She knew the world. And she’s a woman that has a lot of pressure on her being a mixed woman. She spends her life doing culture pieces and having people wonder if she’s the right person to do it. She’s got a smaller production company. And so to put that much on her back and for her to be part of, I mean, you’ve seen how huge this documentary has become. And it is a statement of the culture, of the industry, and of a time and place in which a lot of things were going unchecked. I just saw that Netflix was willing to take its time and that she was taking her job of telling this piece of history with a lot of integrity and she was being very careful. I wanted to be on a documentary that was going to tell a through story of a man’s life, good and bad.
What was your reaction when you were first given the affidavit?
The first thing I did was verify everything that I was told that this woman was. Who she was, how many kids she had, or what she does for a living, or her degrees. I wanted to make sure, as the daughter of a lawyer — my stepdad was a lawyer too, so of lawyers — that I did my due diligence in understanding that this person is real. And when I got that concerned was right around the time that [the authorities] reached out to me and wanted to meet with me. So the problem was for me, when you speak with them, they tell you two things when they leave, which is, don’t tell anyone that you’ve met with us, obviously, until you’ve been subpoenaed or you’re not being subpoenaed and the trial is over. And two, can’t speak to victims because you can drastically create errors in the case if you’re talking with other victims. What if both of you need to take the stand? There can be no communication between two people or else you could have compromises to the actual trial. And so at that point it was, if you wanted to even investigate this, it’s a non-starter.
So I just started reading every civil lawsuit. One thing I noticed in all of them is these instances in which they start feeling woozy. There were instances throughout all of them in which these details occurred and I just kept trying to find myself in any of them. Find anything in them that made sense to me like, oh, I had that feeling too. But it was very difficult to sift through a lot of those lawsuits. Some of them are so horrific. I would be feeling sick over it for days. And when the conversations that were had with this woman over a multiple-year period of time, her story never changed once, and she was speaking with people who did not discuss knowing me. And this is all happening as [Aundrea] called me and said she found me on “Masked Singer” [in early 2025] and wants to sing again. So I’m trying to get an agent to put a tour together and bring all of these girls back. But I’m also secretly suffering in this whole world. And I didn’t even realize when combining the worlds how absolutely horrific it would be for me, for my mental health.
What do you think is going to happen to Sean Combs once he’s out of prison and this part of his life is behind him?
I am unsure that the amount of time that he’s going to be in prison is enough to fully, solely do the type of work that you would need to become a better person and to — how do I say this? To heal into the type of person that could be effective and good going back into life, and I’m mostly worried that a lot of money and a great spin team could create the idea that he has once again recreated a new version of himself. And that worries me, because there are people that will always be around to be able to potentially be pulled into that.
You were saying how you didn’t realize that doing this reunion and dealing with the docuseries rollout at the same time would be a lot to handle. Regarding the timing of the reunion, was it done with the intention of creating a new path forward following what you’ve been through these past few years, or is it just that the timing worked out that way?
I was feeling like it can’t just end here for all of the artists that went through so much. So my thought was being able to end the year on seeing the artists come back and shine, having nothing to do with him. He didn’t build it. He didn’t create it. He didn’t put the show together. Like being able to still show resilience after such a traumatic period of time for so many people, whether you knew him or not, it was so palpable. The trial was so palpable. The behaviors were so palpable. So many people who have been abused in this world in any shape or form, they all were just feeling really heavy. So I thought that this tour would be a good way of closing out the year and really bringing it back to the music and to the reason why all of us showed up in the first place.
You teased the reunion with silhouettes. People were unsure of who was going to be on the actual stage. Dawn Richard said publicly that she didn’t know about the reunion. What sort of conversations happened behind the scenes to get it into the formation that people have been seeing at these shows?
So I reached out to Dawn to come back. It originally started with an agent reaching out to everyone. When I saw her release that, I had reached out and said, “Come back.” The reason I don’t post the receipts or get into it is that we go right back into that divisive Diddy mentality of chaos. And I don’t want to revisit that. The whole point was to not revisit that. And so I just have always kind of let her know a few different times, you are welcome back. I kept the shadows on our initial announcement, because I hadn’t even signed the contract at that point, let alone if any other girls wanted to come forward, we could make room and make it happen. There was a bandmate that did not want Dawn back. There was certain things that were occurring, but for me personally, the motto of Danity Kane is every single time, everyone is invited back. I’ll listen to everybody and I’ll hear them out, but I want everyone to come and speak to each other and where it’s solved is where it should fall. And that’s how it should have been done. And it didn’t get done that way. And that’s not anything that I had anything to do with.
But I have reached out to her multiple times. And of course, I mentioned her and Shannon on the stage. I was able to get Shannon to still be part of the show, even though she’s retired. But I just think that when you’re made under Diddy, there’s just so much that he did to each individual person. Everybody experiences it in different ways, and certain people got it way heavier than others, as the documentary tells the world. And I think that when you build something in an unhealthy environment, that I’m not sure that it ever gets to a place where it isn’t thick.
Now that the tour is coming to an end, have you discussed recording new music? Is that something that’s been on your mind?
No.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
From Variety US