Aubrey O’Day, the frontwoman of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ now-defunct girl group Danity Kane, says she feels vindicated after the embattled hip-hop mogul was arrested and indicted this week on suspicion of sex trafficking, racketeering and more.
O’Day, 40, took to social media on Monday after Combs’ arrest in New York, tweeting: “The purpose of Justice is to provide an ending and allow us the space to create a new chapter. Women never get this. I feel validated. Today is a win for women all over the world, not just for me.”
As the discourse about her fraught history with Combs ignited on X, journalist Yashar Ali tweeted: “For years, @AubreyODay has been trying to bring attention to Diddy’s abusive nature and warn people that he is dangerous. For years. In exchange for her courage, she was bullied, terrorized, and threatened.”
The singer replied Tuesday: “he did worse than that to me.”
The “Damaged” and “Show Stopper” singer came up through MTV and Combs’ reality competition series “Making the Band 3” in 2005. While Danity Kane enjoyed chart-topping success, O’Day departed the group in 2008. In 2022, she revealed on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that she had been booted because she “wasn’t willing to do what was expected” of her.
“Not talent-wise, but in other areas. At the very end, [Combs] fired me,” she said at the time. The group, which made history as the first girl group to have its first two albums debut at No. 1, went on briefly as a trio after O’Day and Wanita “D. Woods” Woodgett departed, then called it quits in 2009. Danity Kane reunited later as a quartet without Diddy’s involvement, but ultimately disbanded in 2014 amid infighting between O’Day and Dawn Richard, the latter of whom was the only artist to remain signed to Combs’ Bad Boy label.
Richard sued Diddy last week, accusing the Bad Boy Entertainment co-founder of sexual assault, harassment and inhumane treatment, falsely imprisoning her and forcing her to remain at his various residences, depriving her and her bandmates of basic needs such as adequate food and sleep. Richard also alleged that she saw Combs beat ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, whose bombshell November lawsuit opened the floodgates of legal woes for the embattled hip-hop mogul, including several sexual assault lawsuits.
After Tuesday’s federal indictment of Diddy, a.k.a. Puff Daddy, Puff and P. Diddy, O’Day told TMZ that she never thought she “would see this day.”
“We all buried this inside of us in order to be able to keep going. And not just me, but victims you don’t even know yet. We are all processing what that type of vindication can actually feel like now. Every conversation I’ve had with victims last night has been beyond moving on all levels,” she said.
The “Celebrity Apprentice” alum and Playboy model, who has also made headlines for her alleged affair with Donald Trump Jr. and her “toxic” relationship with “Jersey Shore” star Pauly D, said in that 2022 podcast interview that “when you’re in Puff’s World, everything revolves around Puff.” O’Day previously accused Combs of trying to “buy her silence” with a publishing deal, alleging that he was using the deal to bar her from talking about alleged abuse.
In the indictment unsealed Tuesday, prosecutors accused Combs — who had been the subject of a sweeping federal inquiry into sex-trafficking allegations since at least the beginning of the year — of spearheading a years-long criminal enterprise that preyed on women, plied them with drugs and forced them to participate in sex performances known as “freak offs.” They charged the 54-year-old with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied the charges and pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Tuesday in a New York courthouse, where a judge denied him bail.
“Mr. Combs is a fighter. He’s going to fight this to the end. He’s innocent,” his attorney Marc Agnifilo said. “He came to New York to establish his innocence. He’s not afraid; he’s not afraid of the charges. There’s nothing that the government said in their presentation today that changes anyone’s mind about anything.”
Agnifilo also said Tuesday that Ventura sued Combs late last year after a discussion with Combs’ attorney about the mogul paying $30 million for the rights to her book did not go well.
Times staff writers Richard Winton and Hannah Fry contributed to this report.