Aubrey O’Day has gone into great detail to explain why, in her opinion, the benefits of Diddy giving Bad Boy artists their publishing rights back belies its optics.
The 39-year-old singer got her start in the music business as a member of the girl group, Danity Kane. Puff put the unit together as part of his show, Making the Band, but was also responsible for pushing O’Day out of the picture once she began fostering her own solo stardom.
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The group generated millions of dollars during their heyday and its members are now eligible for the mogul’s grand gesture, but the San Francisco native has said that she’s not falling for it.
During an Only Stans appearance on Thursday (September 14), O’Day offered a remarkably articulate and succinct breakdown of Diddy’s exploits, bolstered by alleged receipts to substantiate her points.
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While bringing attention to how the group was barely compensated during their most lucrative phase, she revealed that the new deal only pays them royalties for streaming from the past few years — which she claims only amounts to a few hundred dollars.
“In order to get that,” she began, referring to the proposal on her smartphone. “I have to release [Diddy] for any claims or wrongdoings or actions. Prior to the date of the release, I have to sign an NDA that I will never disparage Puff, Bad Boy, Janice Combs or Justin Combs’ music or EMI or Sony ever in public.”
She continued: “What’s happening is artists — some of them; not all of them — are being given ‘streaming royalties’ and ownership back over our publishing on songs that we wrote at a time when, you know, you have to stream a song a million times to make a cent.”
She then cut straight to the point and said: “Diddy is just literally known as the guy that doesn’t pay his artists, and it’s funny and then you move on and you like something that he did on TikTok ’cause he’s funny.”
O’Day summed up the offer, describing it as “a few hundred dollars to sign away my rights to ever tell the story of what I went through again.”
To her knowledge, only two members of Danity Kane have turned down the deal even though she has been reaching out and advising others to reject it as well.
“This is not the money that we made when we released the albums,” she explained. “This is not the $48million that two platinum albums got somebody. This is just some measly streaming money in order to stay hushed on Puff.”
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She concluded: “I just wish that Puff would do what he’s saying he’s doing. I wish he would pay us what we deserved for all the work that we did, and I wish he would make right his wrongs and I wish these headlines could be real.”
