Amy and TJ presents Aubrey Oday covering the Didty Trial. Hey guys, this is Aubrey O Day and you're listening to TJ and Amy presents Aubrey o'da v covering the Diddy Trial Today. I have on my savesy member of d K. I can't even believe it. Ebanie and Ivory is what they used to call us on the show de Woods. How are you, Heyara, Shit, we've been through a lot.
Huh oh yeah, oh yeah, we're got.
Hold on. Okay, So let's get down to the trial stuff first and just get it out of the way. I obviously have to follow literally transcripted transcripts all day long, so I'm like overwhelmed with the amount of information that I know. But as you, we both know, we knew what was going on then, we knew what we saw, we knew what the behavior was. We're learning all the
details in even more detail at this point. But from what you and I'm assuming, I know you keep busy, and I know you stay on the artistic side and the creative side, so I can't imagine that your head is fully into every little moment of this at all. But just from what you've been able to observe, how do you feel it's going and what is your instinct when it comes to whether he's going to get off
or not. You know, prosecution is resting on Monday. Defense is claiming they might just rest on Monday as well, or maybe they'll give it a day and rest on Wednesday. But they're only putting up about a day or two for his defense. Will you feel about that, and what are the people around you feeling? And how are you feeling about which way it's going to go?
Hey, Aurey, it's so nice to talk to you and see your face this throughout throughout this journey, this part of the journey.
I'm gonna be honest, I have not been following the trial. I have tried, actually tried my.
Best to not follow it, just for mental health sake and spiritual, you know, protection sake. It's really it's really triggering. It's really you know, stomach turning. And even the people around me, I think they have been taking care to not bring it up to me because they.
Know how it would probably hearing.
The news and hearing the details. And I think even like you know, parents and loved ones, they may even feel a sense of guilt because in the time being, nobody knew what we were really dealing with and what atmosphere we were really in. And I think what people wanted was for us to take advantage of this opportunity. Just everybody, I'm just talking about the opportunity and the chance and the dream.
And it was like we didn't even get questions.
Like are you safe exactly? Okay? That was that wasn't in anyone's conversation. It was like, oh my god, what does it feel to be around him? Oh my god, you're the luckiest person. Oh my god, you made it.
Like when all the girls that didn't make it that were always a little salty along the way whenever we'd run into them, like they look at us, like we're so lucky, And as time moved forward, we would always be like yeah, yeah, and then get back together like good, you're kind of lucky you didn't make it, b okay.
And then the other thing is like, you know, people telling us how to how to be smart about the situation.
You got to be business minded, or there was another you.
Know take on it where people would basically blame us for the predicament that we were in like, well, it comes with the territory.
I mean you knew what you signed up for.
I mean you would, You're willing to do whatever to get you know aim, you were willing.
To do what you need to do.
You know you can get, you.
Know, whatever you wanted.
You and I represent two very different where are very different women from different places, grown up different ways. Did you ever know any of the things that were going on? Is that ever anything you wanted and what you knew you needed to do in order to get there? I'm assuming the answer is absolutely not.
Yeah, absolutely not.
I mean same with me, but one of our band members we learned otherwise about. But I know for you as your roommate the entire time, that's not the energy you were on and what I saw you thinking it took was sitting in the closet. I remember you would go huddle up in the closet and put on your beat pad or your whatever machine you have back then, and you'd be making tracks and writing tracks and making music and just always I remember that, claud You remember
the closet you would go into not good acoustics. Yeah, like that's not where we me and you were at me you weren't having those types of conversations. Unfortunately, as you you know told everyone on HBO, those conversations did start to enter the chat in our bedroom, like when we would share our bedroom during you know, just so everyone's clear we shared bedrooms because clearly did. He doesn't really like to share his money a whole lot. And so when they put us up, they would put everybody
in rooms together so they could save money. And it was always Drea and Shannon, and it was always Dee Woods and I and then Don was always.
By herself, right, well start remember it started out with us kind of like rotating the single room like yeah, you know, taking terms, but then it just ended up being Don always taking the single room by herself.
Yeah, conveniently. So speaking of Don, she took the stand, I reported she showed up in a three piece suit, vest, full blown blazer, diamonds on the collar, something a lawyer, the lawyer as good as hers. What absolutely advise isn't the look you know, Cassie's she's worth millions, and she still played it low key on the stand. She could
have come from Edgeite and Versace. You're not really the kind of common knowledge in law just growing up with lawyers is you don't wear name brands when you're on the stand testifying as a victim. You don't style yourself, you don't present yourself. You just stay hump. Everything is a visual and an optic in a courtroom, like Cassie's pregnant belly, but they didn't want anyone to see, like
Puff's gray hair. Everything is optics, like the eight Pack of White Women, which was Diddy's attorney's big statement to the media when it first came out. That's what he's up against. Optics or everything in a courtroom. And I saw her go in, I immediately was like, oh no. And then because I'm familiar with her character, I was assuming I was. I honestly was hoping that it would convince me and that I could feel like some relief, feel some relief about some of the worst thoughts that
I've had that she's possibly capable of. And then as she started going on the stand, and it was right after Cassie, directly after, like, that's a pretty big seat in a trial, and in that seat in one story, they caught her in a series of depositions, telling a story seven different ways. So I don't know if you read about any of that. It was reported widely everywhere that she had inconsistent testimony and kind of came off in court is not credible. Did you hear about that?
I did not hear about her credibility and how she came off. I just knew that she took the stand on a particular day, And you know, I was just I was getting a lot of text messages, not direct text messages, but just people saying, thinking of you, You're so strong, are you good?
You know, That's all I would getting.
So I knew something must be happening because I was getting those kind of messages.
Okay, So when her civil case came out, it had all kinds of things in there, but I saw a lot of the things that kind of were on making the band episodes. We weren't able to We didn't eat get food regularly. She had lost so much weight, she was unhealthy, She was forced to stay up long hours, she wasn't paid for her music. And then she feels that during a fitting that he was touching on her in a sexual way as they were trying to fit
the outfits of her body. Those were the basis kind of of what I understood the lawsuit to be suing for, which are things all of us sperience. I never felt when he would come into my fittings and adjust my costumes. I never felt he was doing it in a sexual way. So I can't speak for me personally. I never felt it. I felt like he was coming in doing his regular I want those titties up, I want to ask out cut those shorter, I want the belly to show like
he wanted us to be sexy girl group girls. But I didn't feel like he was getting He wasn't hard while he was doing it. It wasn't It didn't feel like a sexual exchange to me. I don't know if you experienced something like that, did you. I didn't.
I didn't feel the sexual exchange, or maybe I just was, you know, oblivious to that because we were mad young and so it's like things that don't even know it was normal. Yeah, it was very boss is. You don't think somebody like him or your boss is going to be talk to me. But what I did experience was, like you said, was the demeaning, dehumanizing, like gentrification. Yeah, just really feeling like I'm just like a piece of meat.
Just feeling like I'm.
Being tossed to and fro and you no consideration of like.
Our humanity and and just.
Really taking care of like the people who are on.
We're also to be on the same team.
And he really treated us like we were Like he said to us several different times, you are are not worth the shit on the bottom of my shoes. I remember that specifically, that comment from you want to know.
What I keep hearing in testimony or in voice messages baby girl, baby girl. That has me Every time I hear it, I get chills, because baby girl, what do you think this is? Well? What the fuck is this? What is that? Oh? So your baby girl, let me get let me tell you this right now though this is what the fuck's now? The baby girl line is almost like bitch, yeah, like it's it's so yeah, it's interesting because it does. It doesn't sound as horrible as bitch.
But that baby girl stits stuck out to me when I kept hearing it with the girlfriends, because I was like, he said that to us all the time, and it was right before he was about to let us know what direction we needed to be coerced into.
Do you remember when he wanted us to call him daddy, and he told us to call him daddy.
I think so, I even remember King and a few other things I remember. I remember we went somewhere in Miami, maybe like an NBA All Star weekend or something, and there were girls in the limo with us, and we were laughing about like Puff's taste and who he had and I was, and then he got pissy, and yeah, he like popped off pretty hard with all of that the King stuff, talking about he can ride on the backs of humans in Dubai and he can order, you know, like it got very It turned into I'm King and
I could make anything happen, so watchers like, there's nothing I can't do. It is the way that the rant went on. Yes, So when I hear them now calling them wild King Knights, I was like, oh, that's you know, we went from freak offs the Hotel Knights, now this new girl it's wild King Knights. It all sounds about It sounds like the King narcissism bit part of him started to advance when the drugs likely advanced and as everything started to advance. Yeah, So in regards to Don,
were you surprised that she was inconsistent? Did you ever know her to be inconsistent honestly?
Oh yeah, okay.
Did you feel when you read her lawsuit shocked? It said during our time period the time periods that were given in the lawsuit, it overlaps with when we're doing our last album, and it overlaps with I was made to fulfill his sexual desires. Yeah.
Unfortunately, even when Cassie's lost move, nothing shocked me. It just really sickened to me, and maybe said, you know what I mean. But I wasn't like, oh my goodness, I can't believe that happened. Everything was very believable, like, oh yeah, I could be that happened.
Also, so you felt like she she you could You felt it like I guess because I went on with her for so many years of touring and we discussed the Dirty Money era at length. I mean, I know every single person that was hit, thrown, shoved allegedly according to everything she said, but she never mentioned all the
other She never mentioned any of that. So to me, I was like, wait a second, I'm hearing everything else he said, but the you or you were in it factor, and then like I started to go down the rabbit hole and people started reaching out, I learned a whole host of things. I mean, you and I we don't really up like you know, like that. And also it's hard to think of our band member in ways like that. But during your time in the band with Don there was like a high. It was highly contentious between the
both of you. Yeah, and not on your end in my opinion, but that's just an onlooker. But there was this I saw a desire to one up you, a desire to get ahead of you, to rise above you, to be more like than you and not just you. I felt it with myself at times as well. But there was a very aspirational side of her personality that I witnessed, and because there were so many stories told that were inconsistent, it all felt like it felt shocking, and then it felt like, wow, this is like it's convenient.
Did you feel any of that or how what's your take on that?
Well?
I did, like you said, you know, the the animosity between us grew and grew, and like you said, it was not on my ind and I approached her several times to get.
Us on the same page with us.
At the end of the day, we're group members. We were in it together. And I told her that.
I was like, look, we don't have to like each other, we don't have to be best friends, but let's get on the same page because at the end of the day, it's us against them, and they will chew us up and spit us out, and you know, this is our career at the end of the day. I even remember when i'mber telling Shannon, it's going to come a time where we will probably have to break up as a group so that we can salvage our careers.
You know.
Interesting that was before our first album had even come out, because I saw the writing wall. She definitely was the type of person who didn't want anyone to have anything that she didn't have. It was like it didn't matter if I had it, and she, you know, never even thought about it that I had, and you didn't want me to have it.
You're no, there was no There was never like an embracer, like a true sincere. That's why I think you and I became so close. It's like everyone thinks we were just the same and and me and you are both these people that go out and want to listen. Everybody knows you. You know, when we went out, I wanted to go home. You were there networking getting numbers. You are the best networker I've ever seen in my life.
When I go out somewhere, maybe back then, I was a little more excited to get dressed up and go out. I hate talking to people and networking and doing all that. You were like so clutch for our group because we had eighteen numbers. We could call for all kinds of things because you would be out talking, making friends, getting connections. We'd stylists, makeup hair, just people because you would. You would really love You're a great networker, period, and.
We needed it.
We made it. Also, if all five of us, if two of them are staying at home and one of them doesn't know how to authentically connect with anyone for whatever reasons are going on, then out of me and you. If you want to do it, girl, go I'll be your wingman. But when I want to leak and we please leave. I hate this shit like you would get us all the numbers. To me, I looked at it
like you're an asset. Okay, So moving past that, what is the first thing that you remember feeling that wasn't right behind the scenes, Like close your eyes and remember
it could be. First thing I think of when I close my eyes is us sitting outside of an office after being chosen and finding out that there was some conversation being had about Dawn lying on her contracts, and then we were all brought into a room and kind of told she lied on some legal documents that we had to sign in order to be a part of making the band. And I remember we were all sitting in the hallway scared because we didn't know who was
in trouble or what was going on. And I remember like being brought in and being told like she's going to be owing him for putting him through that because they had already picked a band. Later on, Johnny kind of gave me the full picture, but he had to pay money to these people and he had reannounced the band, and so what are you going to do? Take someone out and replace them at that point, you, I guess
they didn't feel that that was a thing. That's the first thing I remember seeing like, oh, this is off, Like this isn't.
By the book well to that point, because at that time Dawn and I were roommates.
Okay, so what was that? What happened during all of that?
I remember that that day it felt very like, oh, we're in trouble at the principal's office. We were in that dark hallway for hours sitting there.
That's what I remember, the dark.
Scary hallway like not even just like no, it was dark. There were no lights off.
I know. It was weird. We didn't have camera crews on us. It was the first time we had no camp like, there were no camera crews. Somebody was in trouble. Don was in there. There was screaming, kept coming in and out. I remember I think tears, I don't know. It was very dramatic, and I remember I didn't know her, so I was like, what is going on? Right?
I just remember girls coming out of the room in tears, crying like one after another, like what is going on in here? And when she came out, she was the She was the worst mess.
And I was like, what did he say to her? You know what I mean?
And so I was preparing myself like I was getting ready for the for the comeback, for the slick talk. I was ready to you know, put her on my armor.
You know.
I was like, Okay, whatever you got to say, I got to come back for that.
I got to come back, you know, and h bankfully, I wasn't even pulled into the room, you know what I mean.
I remember us all going in and him explaining to us that she had lied and said that she was in a music deal and she was, and that he's being kind of hustled by that company. Now like pay up and buy this artist from us, or that's our artist. Johnny told me he had to put up a certain amount of money and everyone was saying, just replace her. But for some reason that didn't occur, and he didn't.
That wasn't the choice he was making. And I remember all of us being aware, and I remember him saying something like, you'll owe me with what is it called when you invest in, when you owe somebody interest plus interest? I remember that well.
I remember, Okay, So, like I said, she was my hotel roommate at the time.
So yeah, when she went back to the room, did she explained what? Yeah?
I was asking her and you know, I'm holding her hands, We're kneeling on the ground, I'm praying with her, We're playing gospel music.
I'm doing all this stuff.
Because as a supporter, and she had just went through Hurricane Katrina as well, you know. So I'm just I'm just digging her up. I'm just like encouraging her. And I remember telling her I was like, well, how much are they asking for it? And I can't remember the number.
I do, but I don't want to say because Johnny told me it.
Okay, Well, I just remember telling her.
I was like, girl, if if he wants you in the group, he's gonna he got that, I said, I said, he got that in a safe in his office.
So he hadn't made a decision. And when we all left that dark hallway, he hadn't made a decision. Probably then, if that's what she said. When she got home, we were maybe waiting to see what the call was. And I so that that was the first moment I remember something with the business being like, whoa, this isn't Yeah, I don't want to understand.
I do remember telling her, you know, whatever he does and the pain he will probably have to recoup that, yeah, you know, because I mean I had I had knowledge of like, you know, music business and the deals and everything like that, having just like because I had just you know, walked across the stage you know all n yu. So I had my my music business stuff you know, right, And I just remember saying, yo, girl, if he wants you in the group, he's gonna pay it.
He got the in a stafe in the back of his office. Don't worry about it.
So then then I was like, yo, if it's for you, it's for you.
But it's not whatever he had more money for the freak off. So clearly, period, what's the first time you remember seeing or sense experiencing a thought where your gut went to the ground, like, this is sum's not right that whatever yours may be mine was within our group, but what was yours?
Well, honestly, and that.
Could beat a dead horse.
Because I feel like this is the only narrative that has ever told about me, was that first time we came together. We didn't even have a name of our group, yet we had been We were chosen in November of two thousand, November fifteenth.
Remember that's our LLC. You know that. I know that Dawn suit our LLC and her contract in her lawsuit. I saw that it's not even an active LLC by the way, But anyway.
Right, it's also my sister's birthday, so shout out to my sisters.
So I remember we came. We came back together.
For the first time at Johnny Wright's compound to do a performance for NBA All Star Week, and we had no material. We had no We were trying to heart.
Yeah.
This is when he was shaming you, body shaming you.
Yes, And it came. It came out of nowhere because literally right before they turned on the camera the zoom or what was the skype at the time.
Everybody was like, damn, your body is saying you had a twelve pack.
We were just you were like I was leading the workout warm up with everybody.
I was like, Okay, we're gonna do this. I do these mondays.
You have a body to everybody in the industry, we bought in order to become famous.
It's wild, yeah, and in my face, you know. And it was just it was just left field. And I remember like I had to bite my tongue because I was like, like I said, I was ready with the comebacks, but I wouldn't.
I was trying to be respectful, and it was.
Just so left field. It was like, why would he say that to me?
Why would he why would he go that far?
Like at first I was laughing it off, but he started going further and further and further, and at that at that point.
I could tell he was on something. You know, he was high on something.
He was getting off on it, and he kept going and going. I remember it was like he was getting off on continuing the jokes. He had done that to me and I got brown hair, Like, who the fuck is I don't even recognize who that was.
I remember that.
Yeah, he made me go into Orbey's bowl and then Orbaye uh fried all my hair off and then had to put a head full of extensions on me because they burnt all my hair off. That would be crazy. I stopped La Sorbe.
I was never able to wear my hair natural, so my heir, I remember that where I.
Created my He hated what black women wearing their natural hair. He always wanted your hair slick down, the middle parted and flat, flat ironed. I remember he always hated that about the beauty standard that he expected of you. I remember that being a consistent thing, right.
And then when I came in with my hair cut like that, he was just like, but it was too late. We had to go off stage like they're like, k God, so.
Time, okay, So this is more of.
A because we're just going back for a hot second. Yeah. I do remember Leola, our director, coming to me and telling me that how disgusting that really was somebody's outside eye being able to see that, see what he was doing, and see what he was doing to a young young woman, and how disgusting it was, to the point where she told her cameras to stand down and shut it off. And I remember telling Shannon once.
Again, I don't know. Me and Shannon always had these side conversations because.
She was She's good inside, she's good inside conversations. She does them well.
She was like, oh my god, Oh, I can't believe he did that. That was so you don't know, so wrong on the other And I remember telling him. I'm telling Shannon, I said, don't worry about it. He's gonna have some daughters one day.
And I had no idea.
Yeah. And Dean, now he has them in court listening to how Daddy liked to swing it, slap it and roll it all around. He has them in court for Optic's sake, listening listening to Cassie's testimony. In the beginning, they haven't been in court consistently, a bit opted out but that's how much the consideration of the he'll have daughters one day line really got as far as it got. But speaking of something you just said, Leola, because she
also protected me from many things as well. Even at her wedding years later she had said, like one of the top I think it was the biggest time she ever had to kind of betray herself as a producer. Was a situation that happened with me and her having to bring me back into something. Because this leads into my next question, how do you feel about coersion, force, body shaming, humiliation tactics that they called reality TV being sold as a standard and mostly a lot of times
as a comedy. It was funny when he made all the guys and girls walked to Brooklyn for cheesecake but technically having a bunch of black folks walk to Brooklyn. Babs said she got tendon itis or developed something in her late like an to go to the hospital. And then the next day he was like you went to the hospital and she was like yeah, thinking she was going to get some like like good job or I'm so sorry or dan I was hectic, and he was
like cool, so you want to go home? Then like it wasn't cool to you and and I told Dad's damn. I mean we had versions of that, but our versions were like, woke us up at six am. I had to sing Whitney Houston in front of eighteen people would no warm up, then run to here. Then we had to run Central Park until somebody dropped and then they would go home one or two people. Then we had to go to that dance thing where he was just dropping people like live like all of these things that
are not normal. Nobody in the industry that's a famous artist had. Taylor Swift did not have to do any of that. And I don't know what everybody you know. I'm not here to talk about everyone else's story, but a lot of things that we did that are not mandatory requirements yet. I sometimes look at past Leola because Leola saved us. But when that moment happened with you, shame on him. I'm glad there was a producer there to help you with mentally in that mental health sense.
But who over at the larger companies decided to air it exactly and who decided to air it as an issue of yours right?
And I remember being talked to buy. Some of the other producers I won't name them, and I remember them telling me, well, you don't really have a struggle, and we want people to be able to relate to you, so we wanted to bring that up.
And I was like, but it's not a struggle of mind.
Don't create.
Don't fabricate an issue.
And I was like, there are real issues.
There are real challenges that we are really having. You don't have to fabricate something and create a body issue. And I had to walk around the real world and people stop.
I know. I felt like, why don't we just come on the cameras and talk about what don said about you? And she forgot to turn off her phone. That's a great episode of television instead of calling you overway burgers overweight. I mean, you have the house waist side of everybody there and an eight pack or twelve pound don't know. You got a lot of little squares on your stomach.
And he had me doing the extracurricular workouts by myself.
I remember him pulling me into the in said the office one.
Time after he had me working out by myself extracurricula, and he was like, oh, what are you doing running on the treadmill, will waist in your arms, And I was just like, well, my body develops muscle, and anything that made too much sense.
He wanted to cut you off.
And hear it, you know what I'm saying. I was like, my body developed muscle quickly, Like I remember meeting Serena Williams not too long after that, and I was just like, girl, me and you, we shaped the same.
We just stay tight.
But she was like, yep, yep, these thighs they that's what happens.
Yeah, But but what's crazy is that ended up being the beauty standard that every girl now is on tables trying to get at plastic surgery offices. Tiny days, big beauty, thick legs, like your arms are tiny, your waist is tiny. Like you, You're beautiful. You literally naturally have the entire body standard that has now become the thing that everybody
wants to purchase. And yet at that time, when I look back on all of it, like sometimes I wish could I wish they could just say sorry to us, Like I know that they can't leave for legal reasons, just because Dawn suing them. Sarah's suing them. You know, she sued everyone she sued MTD, Viacom and everybody else in her lawsuit. So did Sarah, but so so then
it becomes a situation where you gotta stay mom. But like I wish, I wish that it's very clear that we were in a very unhealthy situation and a lot of people knew, let's stop acting like nobody was on set and nobody knew there were tars being thrown, there were lawsuits occurring during the making of it. There was temper tantrums, there was choking, there was people coming in
with fuck up faces hiding behind. But there was a lot of things going on that everybody saw while cameras are their cameras down, like you said, one of our producers said, cameras down was probably the most frequent thing I heard on that show on the production side, cameras down. Whenever a behavior was getting out of hand, it was the camera's down behavior.
Yeah.
So to me, it's like, at least if the editors are watching it in a bay, there's got to be some HR policy where you got to move it on up to the top and ask, hey, you know this is part of HR on our side over here, when
this big corporation I don't think this is okay. But like even you know, knowing after seeing that lawsuit and knowing all the things like Makua had told me, you know, allegedly like down knew who was going home that day in the room when I was fired and then you were fired after Oh yeah, second, when you watch it back the you know, it was like the whole presentation, it was completely uneven when we walked into that room, like there is some people were styled with makeup and
hair g looks, and the rest of us just did it at home and showed up. But like when I go back and I watched those things, and then I go back and I see like three parts and Nowey's that Sway was hosting where Diddy's in Miami and a towel probably just got out of a freak op or maybe he's about to get into one. Maybe he was watching one at that point for fuck's sake, And he's sitting there berating me, laughing, and I was just sitting
I think you decided not to come back. The other three were on the couch and the only person and I wasn't even clos with her. Then Shannon reached out and grabbed my hand and held my hand because it was like I was just getting beaten up, like psychotically beaten up for what it was the same question. Do you think Danny Kane was to blame for the demise of Dannity Kane?
Absolutely not?
Okay, moving forward? Do you think any one person the demise of Danity Kane?
Sean p Di dy Kom.
Is there anyone in Danity Kane that caused the demise of Danity Kane or was aware of the demise of Danity Kane before Danity Kane was aware?
Yes, I do believe that.
I believe God knew, and I believe thank you.
Do you think there was already asked you that? Okay, Oh no, you haven't really watched the trial. Question. Do you think the verdict, whether he gets offt or goes in, do either of those verdicts make a significant shift in the music industry.
I think it will make a shift, but how much of a shift.
Or how much more careful I.
Don't know if it will change anything because so many people are in kahoots and so many people are benefit off of the way things are, you know what I mean, And I think people will just get more careful. They won't change for the better, They'll just get more careful.
They'll watch their technology a bit better.
Right, and and and it might even mean that more victims are ostracized and black balled as we were, you know what I mean.
Instead of doing right by us, we just were ice. We were just thrown to those to the wayside.
Do you believe many people will be in danger if he gets off on most of this?
Yeah, including us two? Correct?
Okay? And then what does justice feel like for you? What do you want to see happen? What would what would bring the final a final piece of piece. I don't like to see, say the final, because I think it's going to be a process till the day we die to untangle what was put on us at such an impact full time. I'm still untangling. I mean, I just learned that my dand mate was involved in all kinds of really hectic things that carried the shit out
of me. I don't know, even though I thought I thought we all went through it together, I didn't realize that we were there were actors or acting going on. I just I really just thought it. You know, we know who this one was, we know the one which was temperamental. We know the one that was messy. We know that this well, like I didn't understand there was so much aspiration occurring around us. I saw it sometimes in the girlfriends, but I didn't see it in our group.
So it's like the amount of deception that I feel is like who are these people? And when I talked to Drey, she was like, what the fuck is all of this?
Yeah, like you said, we were in it.
So like seeing the forest for the trees right now is a big thing, Like wow, like kind sizing twenty twenty, it ain't even twenty twenty because we're learning new facts and then things that we physically subconsciously you know, no, and it's coming to the surface now. So like mental health is a big thing in my production. That's that I'm getting ready to present here in New York at the Public Theater.
And tell me about that real quick. Get your plug in because I want everyone to go support you.
Yes, June twenty eighth, This coming Saturday at nine thirty PM or six thirty West Coast times. I have a global live stream if you're not in New York.
And I at it.
Yeah, yeah, I wanted to open up open it up as much as I could.
I hope people could be in the room.
The name of the the name of the show is My living Room Self.
And that is from a director that I worked.
With, the named Tom Jones, and I worked with him on Candy Burris's production Love You were great and I thank you, and Tom Zones would come into rehearsal saying, I want your living room self, I want your extreme.
Living room self.
He was very animated, you know, but he wanted us to have the freedom. He wanted us to take off all of the judgment, all of the perfectionism, all the things that we're afraid to do, afraid to be, you know, like critique. And that's exactly what we went through doing making a band.
Like okay, sorry, let me ask you in this performance are you are you wearing no makeup?
Then?
Because there's no makeup in the living room, girl.
I've taken it. I'm taking it off. Yes, you will see us stripping down. Is it is?
You know? You get your last If I come visit your living room, I'll take off the lashes.
Take off the last, take off, your bral take off.
So I don't have a bra and I never have a bra.
It's basically trying to reclaim that most authentic version of yourself after all of the all the chips on your shoulder, after all of the you know, toxic voices in your head, all the all the ways you've been pooned and picked that and position and the way that we show up and the way that we're standing is so natural. It's like we're holding our breast. But when you come into the living room, you're able to let your guard down, You free yourself.
Yeah, well I do want to. You're just making me jump to one story. One of the last times we spoke, you were talking, I had gotten an Afi David that was I can't talk about it, but I received an Affidavid that was horrible. I sent it to you to ask you if you had remembered any of the detail tails in any of it, recalled any of it. And you were in Africa at the time, and you had brought the dress or outfit that you had worn the David.
You were fired, yes, And I remember you were telling me you were like how heavy it was, and like you were kind of burning it on you burnt it and left it there the ashes there right, Yeah, and that you were kind of going to put whatever the spirit is of whatever that may be for me in it too.
Yeah, and my my spiritual advisor as we call him our bah bah you know in Nigeria.
He because when you text me that, it was right after we had done.
All of these you know, spiritual cleansing, you know, rituals and things. I'm so sorry, No, no, no, it's okay.
It's okay, because.
Everything happens for a reason, and everything happens in the right timing. And I remember him telling me because I broke down in tears and I was almost like I don't want to go.
Back, like when you read it, you read it.
I read it right there, and I ran out of my room and I ran right to him and I was like, this is what's happening. And he was telling me, you know, even what we've done here is going to protect her, It's going to protect both of me.
And tell me and by the way, like I latched onto that protection because I feel now more than ever, especially after talking with Q, that there might be some type of like bad energy sources that are trying to invade our bubbles and invade our places, and that you have to be careful of all kinds of.
Things, trust each other and make us, you know, go into a show.
Two questions. But I want to get to these quick trigger just quick ones because they're getting me times up. But I don't. I want to ask you all these because they're funny, and I never got fun interviews. It's always so stressful with this topic. But to clarify for both you and I, why do you think I got fired?
It was sexual harassment retaliation? That's my sportance.
Why do you think you got fired?
Because I was close to you and it was retaliation?
Okay, So now here's the question. Games okay, and you have to just quick trigger long, no long definitions, just quick trigger first thing out your minds most outrageous rule did he had for us?
Oh? My goodness, no.
Sleep for seventy two hours and longer?
Who cried the most during making the band?
Drea?
Who got who got the most side eyes from Diddy?
You know you may get side eyes?
You got direct eyes.
Direct hella directs? Who knew how to play that game? I say, Dawn, how did it feel to hear you're fired?
It was like oh?
And then actually say it in his words? You can go too even worse.
Yeah, you can get out.
Now, he said, you can go too. Yeah, like an afterthought.
Almost, it was like a gut punch.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck, like just like tangles and spines like yeah, okay.
Describe Diddy's energy in one word, toxic, craziest rumor you've heard about Diddy back then. Oh, back then, it's just a rumor. It's a legen. So you could say anything. You heard that back then. It was crazy, okay that.
He had off you know, Paige Officers, some NYPD running around chasing j Lo to find her around New York City.
She was trying to get with him.
One thing we weren't allowed to do. That now sounds insane.
He said, one thing we were not allowed to do.
Yeah, that sounds insane.
Shoot, one thing we were not allowed to do.
I could name something. Go ahead, get na get paid? Oh yes, get by.
How about where the wear my hair?
The wee grows out of my head?
There you go, there you go. Who do you think scared him more? Us or the truth?
The truth?
Your favorite member of d k abrio day you're mine too, least favorite member of DK, which still means you like him, but least say or maybe don't but least favorite.
Oh man, this feels like a beat up session.
Now it's not there. These are just one of all same mind a few sayers, Okay, say down?
I agree.
Were all the Pussycat Dolls microphones on when we would tour with them?
I don't know, but I know Nicole shares ingers Mike is going right now on Broadway, she is singing down.
Her mic was on. But on the days where we would feel bad because we were watching watching our costume crotches in the sink because we didn't have multiple costumes like they did. Yeah, and we all put our in ears together because we shared the same five networks. Do you remember how we couldn't hear anything coming out of a few of them?
I just remember I remember Melanie Mellan, Meloany Thornton's might being on, Might being on.
Yes, exactly, and everybody else's I didn't hear. And then did they have a vocal pitch rig?
They did?
Did they have one?
Did they?
We?
Everybody knows we didn't? Did they? Okay?
Did?
Who is the last you K member you spoke to you? Which DK performance lives rent free in your head?
Rent free for other reasons, but.
The one when I invited my boyfriend and I got him front roasting from roasting tickets, trying the basketball player guy, no, the one that I.
Was the long term one.
Yeah, okay, okay, and he decided not to show up.
Oh damn.
Those seats were empty in the front row as we were performing live.
Rent free of all the iconic shit we did on stage that lives rent free. I'm so sorry, Mama.
That hurt the most.
Because I felt like he was my refuse, you know what I'm saying, Like.
He's who I talked to the most, He's.
Who the expression is allible things, and I just felt abandoned and he just didn't show and it was it was jealousy on his part, like he was also he was comforting me, but he was jealous of me at the same time.
Which is the case of most women in this industry who missed the most rehearsals.
It is between you and Don.
I'm not afred. I was gonna say, no one. We weren't allowed to miss rehearsals. I don't. I mean, I think I missed some performances because of Broadway. Don took off to go do dirty money stuff while we were still doing Danity Kine. But rehearsals, we all had to be in rehearsals. Yeah, I can't. It was just show. Yeah, okay, who kept the group grounded when it got messy? Shannon, biggest diva moment you saw yours are someone.
Else's in the group.
Yeah.
Oh, The biggest diva moment was when I fought so hard to get my sister's song on the album in My Heart, In my Heart and some people and Don Andrea up and you know, do a fit and left the studio and didn't want to record it and come back for like four hours.
But guess what, that man, you got all you got, all the time you need.
I want to say it's my favorite song. I got so many parts on that song, and I love that song.
I still played said go ahead, take.
You and I did. That leaves you to my next question. Top three Danity Kane songs. Your top three favorite off the dome? Top three favorite?
The ones that we wrote.
Picture is top three, pe to my Heart, strip Cy's Mary Brown because she allowed us to.
Write on Okay, so strip Tease, keet to my Heart. What's your third one?
Picture?
It is because we wrote that poem together.
I love picture. Okay, would you ever go on tour with all five members of Danity Kane?
Again, I don't think it would be a good I don't think that would be a good situation. I'm going forward with you.
I'll go on tour with you too, obviously, but the five is the question.
No, I don't think that would be good.
After the trial to know for me as well, But you, Drea Shan, I'm fine. Who surprised you the most that's been speaking out about the Diddy trial or Diddy in general recently. I'm actually surprised that don't spoke out if Diddy called today? Are you answering?
Now, we're not a lawyer present it a whiteyard.
Who's more likely to survive a scandal? A boy band or a girl group. Let's say Dannity Kane.
A boy band, and why because they're boys.
They just forgive and overlook the boy's behavior.
So girls don't really run the world, do they? No, Beyonce tried it. She tried to give us some self esteem, But we don't really run the world. Let's be real.
Yeah, we we have a power, and that's why there's such a backlash against women because we are so powerful. So that is why there is so much effort to contain and you know, oppress us because we are powerful. Yeah, I'm trying to silence something that you're not threatened by.
Correct. Okay, One word Shannon, one word for Shannon Mother, one word for Drea. If it's like a double word, it's gonna a double word. But one thought for Drea, Sia.
Hair, one thought for me.
Live Wire, one thought for uh Dawn mm hmm, mask, one thought for you, abundance.
Yeah, okay, and my last question finished the sentence. Danity Kane was never just about Vanity.
Caye, was never just about a TV show.
Or music to listen to.
For me, it was a really hard life lesson in many different things, in who I am as an artist, who I am as a professional, who I am as a you know, business person?
And yet it was a.
It was a real growing up moment.
Let me ask you this, Did meeting Diddy change your life?
Yeah?
Do you think you would have a more enjoyable life if you had never met him? Yes? Do you think that there are things that you experienced under him that you will forever be healing from?
Yes?
Do you feel like during your time there you felt versions of force, coercion, manipulation, extortion. I mean it's kind of like all the albums we did and didn't get paid for.
But yeah, financial abuse.
Financial abuse, body shaming, all of the things. Did you feel all that you experienced all of those things in your time there?
Yes?
Would you take Danity Kane back from the world if you had the opportunity, knowing what you know now to not have gone an auditioned for it?
Oh, that's a really hard question.
You think about it because I only want to guess or a no. To be honest, you don't have to live for anyone but you.
I would take it back for me, hands down. But for for the people and for the people who are continue to meet and who have wonderful memories and experiences, and who were inspired and who continue to be inspired even through all of this that's happening. They are inspired and speed strength and see you know the bigger picture in ways that it affects their life, Like it's great for them.
But does all of their joy combined make it worse your pain? Mmmm?
It has it hasn't.
It hasn't paid up yet?
The words thank you so much.
I love you, sir, thank you, Bye bye bab.