Aubrey O’Day Has Been Trying To Expose Powerful Men Like The Trumps For Years

During the chaotic second presidential debate, Danity Kane singer Aubrey O'Day drew our attention from the dumpster fire taking place on our screens to her Twitter timeline, where she was spilling some serious tea on the Trump family. Many were stunned by her candor during such a high takes time in the presidential race, but O'Day has a reputation for shaking the table, especially when it comes to men in positions of power.

On debate night, O'Day logged onto Twitter to call out President Donald Trump and his family, offering the world a taste of the secrets she claims she'd kept about them for years. The singer's deep knowledge of the Trumps' most intimate affairs came from her alleged relationship with Donald Trump Jr., who was in the middle of his divorce from his wife at the time. According to O'Day, her ex-boyfriend hated his father, Eric Trump had cheated on his wife with a Miss Universe winner, Ivanka doesn't support the administration, and little Baron Trump was a nightmare to be around.

O'Day has yet to follow up her debate claims with the receipts that she swears that she has, but her very decision to attract the ire of the most powerful person in the country and his supporters speaks to a long history of calling out powerful men — and we saw the early evidence of that tendency in first brush with fame on Making the Band.

We met O'Day on the third season of the MTV singing competition. She joined hundreds of eager young women in New York City, hoping to be part of Diddy's new supergroup after the success of O-Town (season one) and Da Band (season two). The competition was strenuous, often pushing the contestants to their emotional and mental limits, but on November 15, 2005, the final five were chosen to form a girl group known as Danity Kane: O'Day first, Wanita "D. Woods" Woodgett, Shannon Bex, Dawn Richard, and Aundrea Fimbres.

Fans were certain that Danity Kane would be the next big thing, and their early days as a girl group showed promise; the girls worked with super producers like Timbaland and Missy Elliott and even outsold Outkast with their first studio album. But the drama unfolding behind the scenes between O'Day and Diddy threatened to stop their success in its tracks. On the fourth season of Making the Band, viewers watched as Diddy and O'Day continuously clashed over her image and vibe; he thought she was doing the most, and she felt like he was trying to control her every move.

Their conflicts affected the group's stability and spurred up internal rivalries between the members. Richard quickly rose in the ranks to become the hitmaker's favorite member, and she quietly began working with Diddy on other projects (including solo work). In 2008, O'Day was officially kicked out of the group, along with Woods. The reason? Diddy felt like her sexy image was inappropriate for Danity Kane's younger fanbase at the time.

"I got love for Aubrey," he said of the singer at the time. "I don't have any beef with her. I just want to work with the young lady that I signed, not the person that fame has made her."

But that wasn't the last we heard of O'Day or of Danity Kane. The group broke up, reunited, broke up again, and then ultimately reformed as DK3. Over the years, O'Day has since maintained her staunch stance that Bad Boy Records and Diddy were responsible for dividing the girls amongst themselves and subsequently running their careers into the ground — a hot take that is shared by many fans of artists signed to Bad Boys Records.

In a 2019 conversation with Variety, O'Day didn't hold back her feelings when talking about the stressful environment that Diddy created for her and her group on Making the Band.

"Puff is a very difficult person to work with,” she admitted. "Everything had to be perfect."

“We were scared to death with what would happen with Puff each day,” O'Day continued “There was just no room for error. Diddy was one of the most intense people you could ever work with. I experienced everything from race [remarks] to sexism, and a lot of it was scary.”

One might argue that O'Day's public beef with Diddy may have held her bck professionally — the music mogul is one of the most powerful people in the industry, and O'Day's current career is a far cry from her Danity Kane days — but that hasn't stopped her from speaking out. Years later, O'Day is still gunning for her former boss, and now she's coming for the Trump family, too.