‘Plastic Surgery Rewind’ Star Aubrey O’Day Opens Up About Fear Of “Physical Danger” After Speaking Out Against Diddy: “There Was A Time That I Grabbed A Butcher Knife”

Aubrey O’Day is aware of the “physical danger” she could face as a result of speaking out against her former record label boss Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was recently convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted on sex trafficking and racketeering charges.

O’Day, who was only 21 when Combs discovered her and her Danity Kane bandmates on the third season of MTV’s Making the Band, first spoke out against the incarcerated music mogul after he publicly fired her from the girl group in 2008 for being too “raunchy and promiscuous.”

“Now I think the whole world understands, if I were and had been at that time, he would have loved me,” O’Day told Decider while promoting the season finale of E!’s Botched Presents: Plastic Surgery Rewind. In recent years, O’Day has accused Combs of grooming her from a young age, and implied that her firing came after she refused his non-professional demands. Following her exit from the band, Combs allegedly “blacklisted” her from the music industry as a way to continually “humiliate” her. “I’m a really smart girl and I’m really deserving. I’m a good person, I treat people well, and I know how to do what I do very well in every area. It was a loss for what I could have brought to the table in many situations,” O’Day said.

These days, the singer has been using her voice to spread awareness about Combs and advocate for the victims of his alleged abuse—a type of bravery that sometimes comes with a hefty price to pay, whether it be blacklisting, lawsuits, or, in his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura’s case, physical violence. For O’Day, it wasn’t until Homeland Security began investigating Combs—who was ultimately arrested in September 2024 by federal authorities, at the same time O’Day was filming Plastic Surgery Rewind—that she realized she could face retaliation for speaking out. In fact, she began to notice “suspicious” cars on her block shortly after she “amped up” her anti-Combs rhetoric.

“I know how to look for certain things based on certain things that I’ve had to learn in life. There were unmarked cars around me for a bit that seemed suspicious. I don’t know how much danger there ever was, is or isn’t,” she said, revealing that she once “grabbed a butcher knife” when she noticed the unmarked cars near her house. “But I’ve been aware multiple times in the past couple of years that physical danger is a real thing.”

When we caught up with O’Day via Zoom, she spoke at length about her experience with Combs, her thoughts on censorship under the Trump administration, and why she’d be the perfect person to cast on The Traitors. Check out the full interview below.

DECIDER: I so enjoyed watching your journey on Plastic Surgery Rewind. When this show was pitched to you, was it an immediate “yes”? Or did you take some time to think about it?

AUBREY O’DAY: No, I definitely didn’t think about it [for] a while. The entire experience of being able to reapproach and rethink beauty standards is something that I’m very much into.

There was a lot of heavy stuff going on this season, but I loved that you were still able to bring a comedic tone–especially in your scenes with Dr. Dubrow. What was it like to work with him?

He’s so funny. I could tell that someone like me could make him feel uncomfortable. So I was like, “You know what? Let me take him out of his comfort zone.” I just wanted to pull him out and be a little more light-hearted with him. When he laughs, he can light up a room. He’s a great guy. So is Michelle Visage, the mom I wish I had. Dr. Spirit, same with her. She’s an incredible woman. 

They were such a great trio to help everyone work through everything.

It was a very healthy, safe environment. On a show that’s dealing with topics that are as big as beauty standards and a lot of times there’s trauma behind a lot of that, sometimes very serious trauma, you really have to be in safe environments. I think that this show did the best job I’ve ever seen of creating a safe environment for the cast. I’ve been on a lot of reality TV shows and I haven’t seen safety in a long time, so it was refreshing. 

I want to get into some of the deeper stuff. As you were filming the show, Diddy was arrested. Then, shortly before this show premiered, his trial was happening. Would you say that what you learned at the retreat helped you in any way as the trial dominated the news cycle earlier this summer? And if so, how? 

Well, I ended up having to cover it for iHeartRadio, so I was in New York live covering the trial, which was a whole different experience than the other people that I know that were involved in his enterprise that tried to tune it out or were able to tune it out. I didn’t get relief from it for many months. The outcome was disappointing, to say the least.

In the show, you talk about how abuse led you, and a lot of your other co-stars, to cosmetic procedures. What does it feel like to finally take that power back?

I think one thing I want to be clear about is–I’m not sure if the show described this or not–you go in and get whatever you get done, you choose to do that. It’s the industry and the standards, powerful men, the way that women understand–we are mirrored back by the people in society that look at us most. That happens to be men. Our understanding of our value comes through a man’s eyes, usually at a young age. We’re very socialized in our country, specifically as women in many different areas. I mean, we don’t even have full rights and equality in that legally. So there are a lot of things as women that we go through. The industry just puts it all on steroids times a few other hard drugs–ketamine and whatever else. It’s just a really hard dose of having to move quickly and having to move at the snap of powerful men or from a man’s perspective of what a woman should be. That’s why you saw a lot of us in that show discussing those types of traumas that led each of us to then go in and get procedures. Nobody forced us into doctor rooms. There are men that do that, however. Diddy, according to Cassie [Ventura’s] testimony, being one of them. That wasn’t my specific experience, but [that was] basically the fad at the time. Now it’s salmon DNA or pee or whatever the fuck it is. Everyone wants salmon jizz on their face. Before that, it was snail jizz. I don’t know why they’re just not getting jizz from the source next to them. Either way, we’re going to animals for the jizz now. There’s always a fad. Duck lips was one of them–pumping your lips with filler. Even friends that have regular 9 to 5 lives, families, kids, they all went and got a little pump or two. Even the ones that held out that I just knew would never do it ended up doing it. When you have access to those things, you tend to overdo it. 

I don’t have a family. My dogs can’t talk or they probably would have been warning me earlier on. I see myself back through the eyes of the doctor who’s telling me, “Oh, more. This would look so great.” You just don’t realize how much you’re overdoing it until you’re able to be in the hands of proper professionals. I do want to give a shoutout to Nurse Chona [Moore], who works with Dr. Terry. She’s the one that actually took my filler out of my lips and gave me the confidence to be fillerless in life. It was a really powerful thing and with some skin treatments, some lasers, you get your skin feeling beautiful again. When I first went in, she’s like, “Why do you wear so much makeup? You don’t need any of it.” Since going to her, I don’t even wear lashes anymore. If you take part in peptides and different treatments, natural treatments, there’s all kinds of lasers and things like that, you can get yourself to a place where you feel free from all of the extras without the invasive surgeries that end up being something that becomes very difficult to rewind. 

I want to talk about your conversation with former Playboy model Kathy Brown. It seemed like you went into it thinking the two of you could almost bond over this shared experience of working under these powerful men who have been accused of abuse, but you quickly became discouraged when she started defending Hugh Hefner. What was going through your mind during that conversation? 

I was specifically triggered that day because there’s a group of journalists and people that all had kind of a tight relationship once Homeland Security started reaching out and speaking to different people. All kinds of different people, lawyers, etc.. There were all kinds of conversations happening and if it wasn’t going to happen soon, it wasn’t looking like it was going to happen. There was a lot of disappointment in the air that day. And then I go into a scene with this new woman that just came in and she just starts saying a bunch of things that were highly triggering on a day that I really thought justice was just not possible. I’ve lived my whole life and I received a lot of blacklisting, a lot of opportunities gone right out the door the second that he said, “You’re fired … for being raunchy and promiscuous,” which now I think the whole world understands, if I were and had been at that time, he would have loved me. 

I had people that said they wanted to sign me. [They said], “You’re the biggest thing in music.” [They] would have me come in, sing, perform, do all kinds of ritualistic shit and then be like, “Oh, I just got a call. I can’t touch you. Sorry.” It was all these things just to humiliate me. And the next guy through the door was Hugh Hefner, who told me, “Diddy’s nothing. He’s not even really known. I’ll open the doors for you in all kinds of different ways.” And I moved on to the next person who, yes, was accused [and] unfortunately passed [away], so we didn’t get to see any fruition of that. Not like fruition is that great nowadays. I think that I spent a lot of my life on a lot of lost and missed opportunities. I’m a really smart girl and I’m really deserving. I’m a good person, I treat people well, and I know how to do what I do very well in every area. It was a loss for what I could have brought to the table in many situations. It’s not even just sticking up in that moment. It’s after, too. If I didn’t take it from Diddy, I’m not taking it from a fucking executive over at some shit network that isn’t even remotely as much of a billionaire as the last guy was. I don’t take it anywhere. Then that deems you, as a woman, as difficult or, “You don’t have the proper messaging that’s going to be channeled through for us.”

They said the glass ceiling in my mom’s day and age. I don’t think they use that term as much anymore. I felt like at many points in my career that I’m just running up against walls. I’m super fearless. I’ll knock it down. I’ll face whoever is on the other side. If my friends can’t do it or these people are scared, put me in, coach. I got it. Those are the type of people they definitely don’t want having any voice, because those are the people that are not scared to use it. I’m looking around right now in this industry and seeing who has a voice with what is occurring in front of us that is highly criminal, inappropriate at the very least, and who is actually changing their tune if they weren’t on it before or who is still actively coming forward. As a journalist, we’re starting to see consequences when you speak up against certain enterprises. You’re seeing Stephen Colbert lose his job. You’re seeing The View being held. There should be a place for all the messaging. I didn’t have any problem with anyone that’s ever opposed my messaging. I don’t mind seeing people support it. I really don’t even mind becoming friends and having conversations with people that don’t think like me. But don’t take away my ability to think and say what I feel. That’s something completely different. We haven’t seen that under any presidency in my lifetime. We do now. We need to be active.

It’s interesting to hear directly from you because this is your firsthand experience. 

I worked for Diddy during the era in which his wealth grew to extreme degrees. A very significant chunk of that Making the Band era? I was there, live in action. I was the soulmate to the President’s son [Donald Trump Jr.] at one point. I’ve been in all the rooms with all the people that are running the conversation right now. I know how they think. I know what they say behind everybody’s back. I know what they say about each other. If anything, I think people should be knocking on my door a bit more and asking what I think.

You do really seem like a fearless person who’s not afraid to put it all out there. Are you ever nervous about an outcome or afraid of facing pushback?

When I was younger, I was more reckless. But nowadays, [there are] two things I’m starting to notice. You have to remember, I’ve known about this behavior for a very long time. I’ve been warning everyone for about 20 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. But when the Diddy stuff started, when Homeland Security started coming around and other things started occurring, and I started kind of getting in the cycle of that situation that was developing when all the world was just buzzing along, thinking that he’s a great guy and nothing was coming, that he just gave all of their artists their their publishing back, and he’s the greatest guy ever. That was the last article the news was fed on him, which wasn’t true. There were times during that where I was aware that physical danger was a reality. There was a time that I grabbed a butcher knife when I was on the phone with another fellow [Making the Band star]. [She was] not in my band, but from a band that [Diddy] created. Babs. She’s the one of the ones that walked to Brooklyn to get the cheesecake. Unfortunately, that’s what they’re known for, which is coercion live on television. MTV loved doing that back in the day. 

There was a time when I was dating Pras from Fugees, and he kind of gave me a call. He would always be my center. I’d 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.” There was one time where he was like, “You could amp it up a little.” And that’s when I got this butcher knife. I was on the phone with Babs and I was making her screen-record all these unmarked cars that were outside on my block. I know how to look for certain things based on certain things that I’ve had to learn in life. There were unmarked cars around me for a bit that seemed suspicious. I don’t know how much danger there ever was, is or isn’t. We saw two victims drop out during jury selection. Clearly there were things moving and shaking on all sides. But I’ve been aware multiple times in the past couple of years that physical danger is a real thing. 

Recently, I read [about] this guy that’s super innovative and an intellect, and he said suppression isn’t going to look the same way as we’re used to seeing it, like blacklisting. I was like, “Oh, wait, hold on. I get a whole bunch of that. Let me pay attention.” And he said, suppression is going to start to look like changing algorithms. I’ve been alive long enough to remember X when it was Twitter and it was good. It sucks now! You can’t even scroll down and look at a fashion topic or a music topic without getting sold a Trump shirt by an AI figure or a medallion. Like, what the fuck? My algorithm isn’t even on it and I’m getting sold Trump merch. I scroll three times and there’s like a big jacked Black man in a shirt, which you know damn well that big jacked Black man did not vote for Trump. It’s just too much. When I’m experiencing that, I’m like, “Wow, I’m seeing what they’re able to do with algorithm.” You have enough money. You’re a billionaire. You buy out a company. You change the algorithm. Now everybody starts shifting in their thoughts. I’ve even gotten to learn a lot more about what the other side feels since X is now that. I think before they thought it was more of a liberal space, but when it was a liberal space, I saw plenty of the other side. I saw both sides reasonably. I don’t see both sides anymore. I see the other side trying. And the algorithm numbers are significant. I lose 4,000 followers a day and I get four likes on a post, which was never the normal for me ever. I had over half a million followers and I’ve really dropped down now that they got ahold of it. 

It all started toward the very end and after the election, right around the time when Elon [Musk] was besties [with Trump]. Before they broke up. The algorithm shift is so strange to watch it live, to watch very pro liberal people lose all of their voice in seconds, watch followings completely shift, watch abuse, abuse, abuse until they fall off and go over to Bluesky, whatever the fuck [it is], nobody’s on it. You know we can’t take it. We’re all trying with Threads. We’re really trying over there and I appreciate the effort. But Twitter was the spot. It was a community spot and now it is not. Period. When I saw that, I was just like, “Shit. They really did take away my voice over there.” I’m noticing on other social platforms how voices are being restricted a lot. I don’t want to advocate super hard for what I’m seeing happen over there. I don’t want to ruin some of my opportunities, but there’s changes occurring all over the land, and censoring voices is happening just through algorithms, because the chaos that is happening in the office right now is so extreme and hurtful to a lot of people, troubling to a lot of people, concerning to at least enough people that you silo off eventually because you can’t take it anymore. It’s just too much if you’re at all a kindhearted, good person that is compassionate and cares for other people, and you don’t want them to lose their access to health care, and you don’t want innocent immigrants that are trying to get through the system to be taken off your block, that otherwise you’ve said hello to for the past 20 years. 

There’s a lot of really aggressive things occurring everywhere. I’m proud to be from California and have a governor–I hope that he’s playing chess and not checkers because he’s going out on a limb. I would walk that limb with him because I believe in him. But I do hope that he’s playing chess, not checkers. I don’t know him personally, so I won’t put a thumb on that  idea yet. There’s a lot of really smart people around Trump and they are looking at all of the odds and the chances and they’re setting things up. Dean Cain, Superman of all people, is training to be an ICE agent in a kindergarten wheelhouse that he posted a video in. So you can go through kindergarten at an advanced speed in a week and get a badge or certificate in the mail to be an ICE agent. We’re normalizing seeing people masked with no badges, stealing people off the streets and putting them, according to what the Supreme Court decided, wherever they must, not even back to their home states. Devices [are] taken immediately and they don’t need to contact family. That’s the law now. So once you start normalizing that, you start thinking forward. Well, this stuff is pretty ridiculous and if it doesn’t touch you or affect you, you are kind of like, “This is off.” But when you start thinking bigger terms, midterms even, if the vote were to go a different way and he didn’t want to leave, and it’s not looking like he wants to go anywhere, he’s not planning on it. He definitely has put a system in place where we’re all used to seeing people in masks, taking people off the streets, and that’s a normalized thing now. I’ve watched it happen. Don’t go to Home Depot. It’s not a good time to do any home renovations. Good God, I have seen some very aggressive behavior just at my local Home Depot a few times now. I’ve seen it on my street, frankly. You see things like that and then it just becomes something potentially that we are going to be normalizing. And then when all hell breaks loose, you’ve normalized a bigger Jan. 6th insurrection that could take place all over because everybody’s certified and wearing masks. 

I think it’s great that you are using your platform to spread awareness. What’s next for you? Where can fans watch you next or listen to you next?

I was documented during this whole process that we’ve been discussing. So I’m looking forward to that and sentencing to be over with so that I can understand how the system is systeming and really get a good understanding of who has the power and who’s protecting what. Because there are so many pieces I’ve learned over the past couple of years as I’ve placed everything out that I’ve seen and that I know.

From there, I don’t know. I think the network that I’m on right now should put me on Traitors. I think I’m a fucking easy pick. This year they should have picked me. Whoever is systeming over there and just doesn’t quite see it for me on Traitors, you’re tripping. The whole audience thinks I should be there. So at this point, if you work at NBC and someone next to you doesn’t quite see it for Aubrey on Traitors, give them a fucking look and a kick in the shin because that’s where I think I should be television-wise next. Music-wise, there’s some things in play that I’m potentially considering revisiting.

I’m very passionate right now about politically what’s happening in our country. I love podcasts, but I was just on one for the Diddy trial, and I didn’t enjoy doing it because too much of what I was able to bring to light was censored. I had an interview with Suge Knight on my podcast, and I thought maybe I would get two runs at him because he’s got a 15-minute clock in prison. I thought maybe he’ll call back once, but I got to really go hard on that second call and ask for the things that I want to know. When people interview him, they see such a sensationalized guy that they don’t get down to it. I’m not going to ask him who shot Biggie and Tupac. I mean, if you’re in the know, you understand what occurred in both those situations. I wanted to ask systematic things to him, and I was able to and I got a lot of answers and they were very concerning. I got names and all of that, and most of it was cut out. 

I don’t necessarily enjoy podcasting, even though I think I’m a very needed voice. If you work for any reasonable corporation, there’s corporate powers that are going to censor you, and they’re going to censor to protect the company from liability. Every time Trump does something horrific and somebody brings it up, he sues. Diddy sues when people bring up things, too. We still have all the powerful people controlling the narrative and then controlling you if you want to speak about the bullshit. I mean, the Ghislaine Maxwell statement. [She said she] never saw him do anything bad. [She said he has] always been a stand up gentleman. A stand up gentleman? Woman. Is that a bat signal? Like what? We all, as a society, have watched him say horrible things about at least one group or race or section of the world. Even if you love him, you’re like, “I wish you wouldn’t have done that, bud.” There isn’t one person on this earth that believes everything he says is gentlemanly and flawless. Right there, that’s a lie. So how am I to believe anything else? It’s so obvious to me. 

I don’t see a comfortable place to advocate. What Gavin [Newsom’s] doing, I’m like, “More power to you.” But he’s almost trying to meet the nonsense with nonsense. And I don’t know that that’s the strategy. I wouldn’t choose that strategy, but he’s got a lot more data in that area than I do. I love the way Jasmine Crockett goes at it, but at the same time, she has limitations to the way that she gets criticized and she has to stumble around all kinds of BS that she doesn’t deserve. That perfect leader? I think it’s Pete [Buttigieg]. But if we’re ever going to put a gay man as president, is the question. So far, it’s seeming like no, because they don’t push him out there and let him really go at it. But every time we let him out and take him for a stroll around the block, whether it’s Fox or MSNBC, he’s murdering everyone accurately, precisely, as a gentleman. That thing that Ghislaine Maxwell said Trump was.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Botched Presents: Plastic Surgery Rewind is currently streaming on Peacock.

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic abuse, help is available. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788.