Aubrey O’Day in Netflix’s Diddy Doc and Danity Kane’s Reunion

In Netflix’s documentary series “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” close associates of Diddy share their various experiences working with the fallen mogul professionally and personally over the years. For Aubrey O’Day, who signed Diddy to his girl group Danity Kane in the early years as part of “Making the Band,” it was the culmination of years of speaking out about her former boss and the trauma she 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 says. Variety. “When I woke up early this morning, all these thoughts started to consume my mind.”

O’Day, 41, discusses her participation in the documentary — which was directed by Alexandria Stapleton and executive produced by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson — just days after wrapping up the 2025 dates of Danity Kane’s “The Untold Chapter Tour” in late December, a reunion that saw her take the stage 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 during the release of the documentary, which details how Diddy fired her from the group for rejecting his sexual advances and, in a shocking moment, reads an affidavit from a woman who claims to have witnessed Diddy sexually assaulting her while she was drunk.

But, as she says, O’Day uses her appearance in the documentary to spark conversations about abuse, not just in the music industry, but beyond. “In general, I want the behavior to stop across the board,” she says. “To this day, we have open discussions about behavior that is very similar. And I wonder what we as a society are going to do about it.”

You were one of the first to speak out publicly about Sean Combs. It’s been going on for years and the response may not always have been as warm or supportive as it is now. Do you feel a sense of vindication in all of this?

You know, I’ve come back to that so many times and my answer is, yes, I’ve been speaking out for twenty years. I did it in a way that I could, based on the things I had to sign contractually to get out of my 360 deal. Then I did it much less. I started over the years when I started to understand myself and build my own career away from “Making the Band” and Danity Kane and Diddy. I began to understand the power of my voice differently, so I spoke bigger about it.

But even when I look back on something like “Celebrity Apprentice,” this clip always comes up at election time, where Trump praises Diddy and says he’s the best man and encourages me to say the same – and I refuse to say it. And I noticed then that I was not so far removed from that situation, but that I was not willing to compromise my integrity, even in the presence of a man who had all the power. So I think it’s been very consistent.

It was honestly very difficult to watch your part of the docuseries, not only because of what you talk about, but also to see how you share that with the world. Why was it important for you to read the affidavit publicly?

So when all this happened, the very first thing that happened in my world was that every person who was making a documentary ran straight up to me and offered me the world. And I was having conversations and noticing, “Oh, these people just want to make a hit about Diddy. These people seem interesting, but I’ve talked to all the producers and I’ve asked to meet with the entire editing department and there’s no black representation here. How could they ever tell a cultural piece without any representation on the production side or the editing department?” I didn’t trust that.

I talked to Alex a lot about everything, and she was kind of the last one to come along and have a deal with Netflix. And then she was the last person to get me. But when I hung out with her, she was just such an incredible, incredible human being. The way she listened to me, the way she confirmed the things I said, the way she listened to the things that happened to me before I made the documentary, and told me that I don’t experience what making a documentary about this project would be like. It almost sounded like I was experiencing what a reality TV version of this would be like, which I’m very used to.

So when I talked to her, she had so much patience and respect. She knew it and understood it. She knew all the connections. She knew the world. And she is a woman who has a lot of pressure on her as a mixed woman. She spends her life creating cultural pieces and makes people wonder if she is the right person to do it. She has a smaller production company. And so to put so much on her shoulders and for her to be a part of it, I mean, you’ve seen how big this documentary has become. And it’s a statement of the culture, of the industry, and of a time and place when many things went unchecked. I just saw that Netflix was willing to take its time and that she took it upon herself to tell this piece of history with a lot of integrity and that she was very careful. I wanted to participate in a documentary that would tell an in-depth story about a man’s life, good and bad.

What was your reaction when you first received the statement?

The first thing I did was verify everything I was told this woman was. Who she was, how many children she had, or what she does for a living, or her degrees. I wanted to make sure that, as the daughter of a lawyer – my stepfather was also a lawyer, so of lawyers – I had done the due diligence to understand that this person is real. And when I started to worry, it was right around that time [the authorities] contacted me and wanted to meet me. So the problem for me was that when you speak to them, they tell you two things as they leave, which is: don’t tell anyone that you met us, of course, until you’re subpoenaed or you’re not subpoenaed and the process is over. And secondly, you can’t talk to victims because you can drastically create flaws in the case if you talk to other victims. What if you both have to take the stand? There should be no communication between two people, otherwise you may compromise on the actual process. And so at that point it was like, if you even wanted to explore this, it was a non-starter.

So I just started reading every civil lawsuit. One thing I noticed with all of them is the instances where they start to feel dizzy. There were examples of these details everywhere and I kept trying to find myself in one of them. Find something in it that made sense to me, like, oh, I had that feeling too. But it was very difficult to sort through many of those lawsuits. Some of them are so gruesome. It would make me sick for days. And in conversations with this woman over a period of several years, her story never changed once, and she spoke to people who didn’t mention knowing me. And this all happens when [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 organize a tour and bring all these girls back. But I also secretly suffer in this whole world. And when I combined the worlds, I didn’t even realize how terrible it would be for me, for my mental health.

What do you think will happen to Sean Combs once he gets out of prison and this part of his life is behind him?

I’m not sure that the time he will spend in prison will be enough to fully and solely do the kind of work you need to do to become a better person and to – how do I put this? To heal into the type of person that could be effective and good to get back into life, and I’m mostly afraid that a lot of money and a great spin team could create the idea that he has once again created a new version of himself. And that worries me, because there are people who will always be there and who could potentially be involved in that.

You said you didn’t realize it would be a daunting task to do this reunion and handle the rollout of the docuseries at the same time. Regarding the timing of the reunion, was that done with the intention of creating a new path forward following what you’ve experienced in recent years, or is it just that the timing worked out that way?

I felt like it couldn’t just end here for all the artists who have been through so much. So my thought was to be able to end the year seeing the artists come back and shine, without having anything to do with him. He didn’t build it. He didn’t create it. He didn’t put the show together. As if after such a traumatic period for so many people, whether you knew him or not, you can still show resilience, it was so palpable. The trial was so palpable. The behavior was so palpable. So many people who have been abused in one form or another in this world, they all felt very heavy. So I thought this tour would be a good way to end the year and really bring it back to the music and why we all showed up.

You teased the reunion with silhouettes. People weren’t sure who would be on the actual stage. Dawn Richard said publicly that she didn’t know about the reunion. What kind of conversations went on behind the scenes to get it into the formation that people have seen on these shows?

So I contacted Dawn to come back. It originally started with an agent approaching everyone. When I saw her release that, I reached out and said, “Come back.” The reason I don’t post the receipts or respond to them is because we get right back into that divisive Diddy mentality of chaos. And I don’t want to revisit that. The whole point was to stop looking at that. And so I always let her know a few times: you are welcome back. I kept the shade on our first announcement because at that point I hadn’t even signed the contract yet, let alone that if other girls wanted to come forward, we could make room and make it happen. There was one band member who didn’t want Dawn back. Certain things happened, but for me personally, Danity Kane’s motto is: everyone is invited every time. I will listen to everyone and call them out, but I want everyone to come and talk to each other, and where it is resolved, that is where it should fall. And that’s how it should have happened. And it wasn’t done that way. And that’s not something I had anything to do with.

But I approached her several times. And of course I mentioned her and Shannon on stage. I was able to ensure that Shannon is still a part of the show even though she is retired. But I just think if you fall under Diddy, there’s so much that he’s done with every single person. Everyone experiences it in different ways, and certain people have it much harder than others, as the documentary tells the world. And I think if you build something in an unhealthy environment, I’m not sure it’ll ever get to a place where it’s not thick.

Now that the tour is coming to an end, have you talked about recording new music? Is that something you’re thinking about?

No.

This interview has been edited and condensed.