Fear of Retaliation From Diddy Caused Me to…
After speaking out against Diddy, Aubrey O’Day was so concerned about a response from the mogul or people close to him that at one point she armed herself with a butcher knife.
O’Day, formerly of Bad Boy Entertainment group Danity Kane, spoke to Decider last week about her fear of retaliation from Diddy, whom she’d accused of sexual harassment for years before his arrest last September.
At the mogul’s trial earlier this year, Diddy was found guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. During the trial, several witnesses testified about incidents of domestic violence — encounters that the mogul’s lawyers didn’t deny (though they did say that one 2024 incident was self-defense). He is also accused of sexual assault in a number of ongoing civil lawsuits.
“Obviously, I’ve known about this behavior for a very long time,” the vocalist said around the nine-minute mark of the video below. “I’ve been warning everyone for about twenty years now that this is not a safe person to work with. It just was falling on deaf ears because no one wanted to hear me saying it.”
O’Day went on to claim that the media was “fed” stories about Diddy giving his former Bad Boy artists their publishing in attempts to look like a “great guy.” The singer added that “physical danger” became a “reality” for her due to publicly challenging the producer.
“There was a time where I was dating Pras [Michel] from Fugees and he kind of gave me a call,” O’Day recalled. “He would always be my center. I’ll be like,
‘Am I being a Karen? Do I sound like a Karen to you? Am I doing way too much?’ Most of the time it was yes.”
After Michel’s recommendation to “amp it up a bit,” O’Day began to arm herself with a “butcher knife” and noticed “unmarked cars” outside her home.
“I know how to look for certain things based off of certain things that I’ve had to learn in life, and there were unmarked cars around me for a bit that
seemed suspicious,” she continued. “And I don’t know how much danger there ever was, is or isn’t.
“I mean, we saw two victims drop out during jury selection,” she continued, referring to two women who were initially listed in government charging documents but did not end up testifying at Diddy’s trial. “Clearly, there were things moving and shaking on all sides, but I’ve been aware multiple times in
the past couple years that physical danger is a real thing.”
As Diddy sought bail until his early October sentencing, those who spoke out against his release were the producer’s ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura; his former stylist Deonte Nash; and his former chef, Jourdan Atkinson, all of whom expressed fear of retaliation.