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Podcast Summary: Call Her Daddy - Aubrey O'Day: Overcoming Toxic Men (ft. Diddy, Trump & Pauly D)
Episode Overview In this episode of *Call Her Daddy*, host Alex Cooper interviews Aubrey O'Day, known for her rise to fame as a member of the girl group Danity Kane formed on MTV's *Making the Band*. Aubrey discusses her experiences with toxic relationships in the entertainment industry, including her interactions with notable figures like Diddy, Donald Trump Jr., and Pauly D. The conversation delves into themes of body shaming, manipulation, and personal growth.
Key Themes and Discussions
Rise to Fame
- MTV's *Making the Band*:
- Aubrey reflects on her early days on the show, which was groundbreaking for reality TV, especially for music.
- She recounts being selected for Danity Kane and the intense work schedule that followed.
Experiences with Diddy
- Relationship Dynamics:
- Describes Diddy as a powerful figure who “stole the oxygen out of the room”.
- Discusses his intense work ethic and the unhealthy environment that led to her being broke despite the band's success.
- Conflict and Objectification:
- Aubrey often argued with Diddy and acted as a voice for her bandmates.
- She reflects on the objectification of women in the industry and the pressure to conform to certain standards.
Body Shaming and Personal Struggles
- Aubrey opens up about her experiences with body shaming, especially as her body changed in the public eye.
- Discusses the negative impact of constant comparisons and the feelings of inadequacy that arose from public scrutiny.
Toxic Relationships
- Affair with Donald Trump Jr.:
- Recounts the nature of their relationship, how it developed during *Celebrity Apprentice*, and the complexities surrounding it.
- Shares her feelings of guilt and shame after realizing the implications of being the "other woman".
- Relationship with Pauly D:
- Describes it as *incredibly toxic* and highlights manipulative behaviors.
- Talks about the emotional abuse and controlling dynamics that left her feeling lost and diminished.
Recovery and Self-Discovery
- Path to Healing:
- Aubrey discusses her journey towards reclaiming control over her narrative and self-worth.
- She emphasizes the importance of self-love and the steps she took to rediscover her identity.
- Empowerment:
- Encourages listeners to recognize red flags in relationships and to prioritize self-respect.
- Advocates for women to embrace their sexuality and individuality without shame.
Final Reflections
- Aubrey expresses a desire for others to focus on their own lives rather than judging her.
- She shares her journey towards self-acceptance and the importance of empathy and compassion in overcoming personal struggles.
Key Takeaways
- Awareness of Toxicity: Recognizing and addressing toxic relationships is crucial for personal well-being.
- Body Positivity: The impact of body shaming can be profound; promoting self-acceptance is vital.
- Empowerment through Vulnerability: Sharing personal experiences can help others feel less alone in their struggles and inspire them to seek change.
- Self-Love: Building a foundation of self-worth is essential for healing from past traumas and moving forward.
Conclusion Aubrey O'Day's candid discussion on *Call Her Daddy* offers an insightful look into her experiences in the entertainment industry, emphasizing the importance of recognizing one’s worth and the power of resilience in overcoming adversity. The episode serves as a reminder of the complexities behind public personas and the challenges many face in finding their true selves amidst societal pressures.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02What is up daddy gang? It is your founding father Alex Cooper with call her daddy. Aubrey O'Day welcome to call her daddy thank you for having me I am so excited to have you here I remember watching you in 2005 on the biggest show on MTV at the time making the band this show was essentially the original x-factor people were auditioning it was thousands of people and they put the best people together to form a band Danity Kane which is the band that you're part of people need to understand that like this show and this band that was created it was the first reality show that followed singers yeah like it was before it was before American Idol I remember watching the show Aubrey I'm not kidding you I was and I think the entire world was enamored by you you were so popular what do you remember about captivating that many people at that time.
1:03So it's funny you say that because I don't even, I can't even like associate with that. I, I, we were so removed from everything when you're in puffs world, it's everything revolves around puff. We didn't know we were just working so much. We would be at like 6am morning radio. We take a flight to the afternoon, my space event. Then we'd be at night on our tour. We do an after party and then we'd be back on a plane 6am next morning show. We hustled like that for years. So you didn't even understand like the gravity of the situation which was like you were the it girl in the band and the band had become so successful and everyone was obsessed with it.
1:38You didn't even know that. No I mean I didn't know the extent. I knew that we I could see what we were the numbers we were selling. I could see us charting things like that but I didn't know we had such an impact. Got it and again to give people context like you didn't have an Instagram account at the time. No there was nothing. There was MySpace. There was my website. So let's go back to the audition process okay
2:18so let's go back to the audition process okay do you remember the first day like what were you wearing? Did you have to wait in a line? Like, can you try to remember that day? Okay. So I was, uh, I had just taken the LSAT. I wanted to go to Columbia and study international law. I have a family of attorneys. And, um, my mom called me the day before and she said, Hey, I think you're going to be miserable being a lawyer. There's a glass ceiling. You're far too creative. And then And she said, Diddy's, a guy named P. Diddy was doing a competition show on making the band. He wanted to start the, like an international girl group on television.
2:59And he was looking for girls that sang like Christina and danced like Britney. And the next morning I woke up and I called my boyfriend in college and was like, hey, can you take me to this audition? I'm scared to drive to LA. And he was like, I can, I'm working. And so I was like, no problem. It wasn't meant to be. And I got, I went on to campus. I was going to my poli-sci class and then he called me and he was like, hey, they like let me go for the day. I'll take you. So I jumped in his car. I was wearing the outfit I had on to class to go to class in. And I went to this audition. There were girls wrapped around like wherever we were, the forum or some big theater.
3:35And I was like, there's no way I got out of the car and everyone was singing Whitney better than Whitney. and I was like, there is no way. And then this producer that I'm now very close with, she pulled me out of line and she was like, tell me about you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We had a little interview and then she pulled me to the top of the line and I went and auditioned. Why do you think she picked you out of that lineup?
4:03God, probably because of the way I looked maybe. Yeah. That's what it always is first. You mentioned the name Diddy. and it's crazy to me and I know it's probably crazy to you but there may be people that are watching this right now that have no fucking idea who Diddy is at the time daddy gang if you're listening he was the executive producer of the show and he on top of that was like one of the most influential people in Hollywood he was a rapper he was a mogul he was so fucking powerful and he happened to be the one that was running the band for you what was your first impression of Diddy and how did your relationship evolve over time while you were in the band?
4:41My first impression was he stole the oxygen out of the room. I've only met three men in my life that stole the oxygen out of the room. Diddy, Trump, Hugh Hefner. Everyone else is noticeable but not in the way they are. I mean, literally, the oxygen was out of the room. He just stole everybody's breath. He's very, like, powerful and intense. He didn't at that time say much, so you're always, like, hanging on every straw. How did it evolve? Obviously, we had, I think, six seasons of making the band, so we were together with him for a long time. He taught me, not taught me, he forced me into a work ethic that I respect to this day because I can do anything on no budget if you put me in a pile of shit I can turn that shit into a castle like I I learned how to be like a really like street smart to be a hustler um do I think the method that he went about teaching us that was healthy absolutely not um and you know after six years two double platinum selling albums we were broke.
5:58I didn't have a dime to my name. And so for, I mean, like we had six seasons on making the band. I think we made like$4 ,000 at the most. You're talking about a show that, that had the same numbers as a Jersey Shore or a Hills or a whatever. And we weren't making anything. We were like, and we didn't even know that we could, we didn't know that we could negotiate our contracts. We didn't know that we could say, we're not coming back until you pay us correctly nothing when you talk about Diddy it's interesting too because I remember watching the show and I remember that he does come off so powerful obviously he is so powerful but you you guys would argue like you were the one person I felt like in the band that had some ability to go at him what do you remember arguing about with Diddy what would you guys everything everything everything but kind of how it worked was I'm obviously like the most vocal and fearless probably out of the girls in those two categories so it was natural for me but also I didn't grow up idolizing him so I spoke to him like a business partner and I'm vocal when I don't think business is being handled correctly so I was vocal another reason I was vocal is because I learned quickly being in a multi uh multiracial group that like the black women when they would come forward and speak about something that they weren't satisfied with it was they were angry black women whereas if I did it it was so cute that the little white girl was trying to have a little a little comment to us so it was received differently so we started to kind of learn how to protect each other and so like I would speak up for things that the group wanted because it was it was like acceptable when I did it and then when we'd be in the studio the white girls were not being put on tracks ever they weren't even being auditioned for the track they were just we were just sit there so I started to like come forward and I said hey I'll go to Diddy every time and take that bullet if you guys say to them hey Aubrey can sing this part dope because you know I can so they would protect me in the studio with producers literally they would get out of the booth and be like Aubrey's gonna take this now and not even give them a chance to have a say watching young women navigate the music industry with a mogul that's running all of it it was fascinating to see the dynamic and if you go back and you watch some of the clips from the show the way the women aka you and your bandmates were objectified would never happen today on on television can we talk about that sure because i remember a scene where they're talking about your body and you're too big here or you're too this or you're too slutty what do you remember about the objectification um oh god it it i think to this day all of my band members are extremely affected by it whether they understand what they're affected by or not we were put in these boxes and everybody had a label and um as women i think that's one of the most frustrating things that we face because we don't know woman that i know women are so unique and beautifully drawn like no one woman is any one thing but there was just such a desire to put women in boxes you're the pretty one you're the this one you're the talented one you're the so like everybody had always felt so much pressure so the girls that weren't considered the pretty ones ended up getting tons of plastic surgery and changing their whole look the girls that were considered the pretty ones never really felt like worthy and talented to be in a room and it took project after project for me to feel like I could say I'm a singer I'm a real singer I produce I write I do every I can I shoot all of our videos I mean I I went like overboard with dumb blonde just because I was like, I needed to get everything out and prove to people like what my worth was.
9:40But, but as far as like looks go, a lot of body shaming. I mean, everybody in my group was tiny. I was a hundred pounds when I first did making the band. I had no boobs, nothing. I was always a late, my mom was a late bloomer. I was always going to be a late bloomer. But like then when my body started to change in front of the world, I mean, people still take photos of me at 17 and then photos now. And they're like, God, look at what happened to her. And I'm like, you guys can't take a photo at 17 and put it next to a 38 year old photo. Like if there's obviously going to have been all kinds of changes in that period of time.
10:10What happened to Danny D. Cain? Why did the band break up? Diddy fired me on on the sixth. I think it was the sixth season at the very end. He fired me. Why? Not for the reasons he said on TV. What did he say on TV? On TV, it was like, to sum it up quickly, was like, you're wiling out. I was hanging out with Kim Kardashian. We were best friends. He thought I was like, he basically like told me I was going in a hoe direction and I needed to like cut ties with everybody. So that was the public facing commentary as to why. Yeah, wild hoe, rebellious, you'll never work again was kind of like the last few interpretations of me.
10:55What the truth was is probably what you can imagine. I don't know legally what I can say or can't.
11:06It's everything you could imagine why somebody would want to fire somebody. Can you give us a little more?
11:16I wasn't willing to do what was expected of me. not talent wise but in other areas and were other girls doing I was the only one that was in those types of positions wow when you look back on that how does that make you feel
11:47you know I have such a love hate with it all because I don't think I would have been able to be so successful in so many other areas had I not been trained under Diddy. He was the hardest person that you can work for and it was torture and not the work part of it but the other stuff. Mind games like just all the girls were so divided and the men and the people running it were the had their hands in it moving everything. There was a lot of betrayal. There was a lot of lies. There was a lot of, you know, when you're young and impressionable and you're just, we understand our beauty as women through the eyes of the people observing us.
12:26Well, who's observing us? Men. So we learn our beauty through a man's eye, which is very subjective. So it's difficult when you're that young to understand your worth as a woman through the men that I was around. And that was very traumatic. I don't think any of us have healed from that. Diddy would be like, you're not hot anymore. Like what happened? and you don't have anything, like, you don't have any curves. You're looking like just, you're not looking like, I can't get people to think that you're my good-looking person. And there was no Me Too at that time. There was no protecting anyone at that time.
12:59You signed a million NDAs and a million contracts that took away all your rights. So you really were operating in an environment that you had no control in. When was the last time you spoke to him?
13:13I had seen him a few times after. But I've never really like sat down and had a conversation with him. What do you think you would say to him if you did get that opportunity? You know, I battle with this because there are parts of me that are just like, you have so much, you couldn't have just paid us properly. You couldn't have just, we wrote songs on both albums. Like you couldn't have just given us our publishing. You couldn't have just been fair to us a little bit. There's something really wrong that we were there for as long as we were and we had no money, that we couldn't buy a home. We were on tour for years at a time.
13:51We would leave tours in debt to the label because they were recouping things, but we never saw what was being recouped, and by the time we went to go after it, Bad Boy was bankrupt. What do you feel on a personal level towards him and how he handled being in a position of power and the dynamic between the two of you? Well, I think it's him and a lot of other factors. like they decided what how I was going to be viewed that's the production company that's the network and that's Diddy so once you're once you're uh presented to the world in a certain way I had to spend many years like in all kinds of twisted webs trying to like you know I got that like sexy girl card so then I was getting playboy offers the crazy thing is is I'm a huge nerd I never was sexy.
14:40I never was cool. I didn't have sex until my like junior, senior year of college. I wasn't like sexual. I wasn't anything. I just loved working and I loved being on stage. So like all of a sudden to play that role was like weird. And I took it on and owned it as mine because that's where my opportunity, the direction of opportunities I was getting at that time. and that has likely set a course for me in life that is very specific and not necessarily authentic to me. Did your bandmates have any idea of the real reason that you left?
15:20Some of the bandmates saw everything that was happening behind the scenes. Some of the bandmates were a part of it some of the band mate we were very very disconnected by the end the hand had gone in it had stirred the pot everybody was protecting their landing zone um and then there were some that just had no idea that all that was happening that just got like blindsided and then ran away and disappeared because they didn't like it um so like did everybody know i think now in life we are all very aware of the things that we went through um we each went through different levels of it. But I would say then, I don't know.
15:59Then was everybody was in some type of competition with each other. So when you left Danity Kane, where were you mentally during this time of your life? So when he fired me, I just stood up. I said bye. And I looked at the producers and they were like everyone was just standing there like in shock the producer like dropped his fucking clipboard everyone was just like what the fuck no one knew that was happening so they like let me leave with my microphone on they didn't even take it off like nobody knew we and I just walked out I got in a cab I was being honored during fashion week is in some like one of the most fashionable whatever and I was and I was sitting in the car with my assistant and I was like I'm really scared and she was like I am too but this needed to happen and now you're really gonna have to fight and for the next like six years I I don't even know what I was doing except my head was down and I was fighting for every inch I had to take opportunities that um I don't necessarily love I had to play into ideas and concepts about me because at that time I wasn't gonna say this is exactly what happened and this is this and that's that like I don't think I had that voice developed yet and I and I was just scared so I just knocked on every door I stood in front of every person and I just kept building opportunity after opportunity but yeah it was it was definitely like um I don't even remember the trauma I've had so much trauma since then but it was my first big heartbreak I know you've been open about parts of your relationship and the struggle with your mom.
17:41Can you explain with how you're comfortable, like what the abusive dynamic was? I think my mother had me, this is just my opinion. I think my mother had me because she felt like she was incomplete and missing something in life. I think I was that thing that was supposed to make her life content and full. You should never have a child if that's the mentality that you're in. So when I wasn't fulfilling her life, I was punished and I was a nuisance and I was abused. So, you know, there are all kinds of things I can remember. I can tie it back into situations and relationships later on in life. But there was always this abandonment factor and there was, I was pretending all the time.
18:31I was going to school with wealthy kids that were super put together and had great parents and nannies and whatever the fuck else. And when I watched my mom get beat by my stepdad and then all of a sudden we were living in a car, then we were getting food stamps, then we were living in the back of a mechanics shop and I could hear my mom hooking up with the guy. Like I went through these like really wealthy times, really low times but at school I needed everybody to see me a certain way which is also something that prepared me for who I became in the industry it's very easy for me to put on that aspirational role but and and like um like that's that's kind of where I learned it I would say because I never let anyone know I was being beaten up at at school I never let anyone know any of the chaos that was happening it did come out here and there when certain things I developed OCD and I would spend my nights like my mom would pass out drunk in the shower and I'd spend my nights like laying down next I'd figure out how to pick her lock with a bobby pin and I'd go and lay down and get take off my clothes and lay down in the shower and put my finger under her nose so I could make sure I felt breath and I would just sit there like this under her nose all night until she'd wake up you know from being drunk and hit me and tell me to get the fuck out and then I was like thank god my mom's alive there's so many themes like you said of putting on a brave face making everything look like it was everything's fine but also getting used to the survival mentality and the role of just having to like take care of yourself but also trying to like please everyone around you and make sure everything is okay and at the end of the day there's one other element too is wanting my abuser to like me to love me because it started with my mom and I really did want my mom to love me I probably will always feel that way until I'm dead let's talk about some of the romantic relationships because yeah it is yeah it is and I appreciate you sharing and being so open Aubrey because it is interesting to hear like it it it it all of our lives are all connected right to what happened to us in childhood and then for you to have a dynamic with Diddy of someone that is abusing their power and you want them to love you and you want to do everything you can to make sure they love you and then now getting into the romantic side of things so before Donald Trump was the president of the United States he was the host of a reality show celebrity apprentice and you were a contestant on the show you then started dating Donald Trump's son Donald Trump Jr.
21:07and he was married at the time that you were dating him so it was an affair how did that relationship begin um I think he probably fell in love with me during the show probably both of us um I was the last woman standing on the show I was the youngest contestant ever at that time and I probably ever um and I was impressive in a way that people weren't expecting so um I think he enjoyed that. He's a sapiosexual. He loves smart people. So I think that's kind of how we both learned each other in this like very intense environment where your mind was constantly on the chopping block, which I absolutely loved because I would rather have my mind on the chopping block than anything else.
21:55So he was on the show at the same time as you? Yeah. Got it. Okay, so you guys started to fall in love while you're on this show. You have said, and you said today, that Donald Trump Jr. is your soulmate. What was your relationship like? Happy, funny, interesting. We both have similarities in childhood with the relationships we had with our parents. So we kind of like were able to, those little like vulnerable pieces of us, those little holes, were able to like connect and protect each other. I think that he was able to be who he really is with me and I think that his life in the other area required him to be something he wasn't and for me in that situation like I said at that time I understood the marriage to be a certain thing that didn't stand a chance next to what we had so I never was threatened by it and I never felt guilty or I didn't hold myself to any accountability until I saw my best friend give birth.
23:11I saw what a woman's body goes through. When I saw that, I felt to myself a little bit accountability for Vanessa and I felt shame.
23:25And like I needed to really rethink the narrative that I had been using in regards to that relationship. Was there an explanation essentially to you from Donald Trump Jr. to be like, we can do this because, like, is that what you're saying? It was kind of like, because this marriage is actually really more of just like a business transaction. And so I have room in my life for an actual real romantic situation. Is that what you're saying? And I told my family and friends and they would think the usual thoughts, you're being lied to in a situation. So I would go back and tell him and then he'd be like, okay, well then let me sit in front of your parents.
24:05Let me sit in front of your friends and let me talk to them. And he did. And what would he say? That he loved me, that he wanted to be with me, that he was making plans to do that, that he would explain to them. He didn't really talk in depth about his marriage, probably to protect his family, I'm sure, but he would basically get them to a place where they understood that marriage in our eyes is much different than marriage at that level. it's a whole different set of rules like it's an agreement it's a contract it's a contract would he talk about his wife to you yes in like how did that make you feel in those conversations um he anything that he ever said about his wife made me feel very comfortable in our relationship did she ever reach out to you yeah how did that conversation go it wasn't nice I got to see a whole another side of her was was it was it because she found out or do you think she always knew uh I don't know because I'm not her but I I believe the the type of anger that was being displayed was potentially likely because she had found out something because I'm thinking like if he was meeting up with your parents and stuff like how yeah like how or your friends like how open was this relationship?
25:32So in the very beginning, I basically just told him like, um, if we're going to do this and I'm going to be comfortable in this type of setting, I'm never going to be hidden, brought up to your room by a fucking security guard, having to like hide and maneuver. Like we have to be open and together. And we would literally be walking down Melrose holding hands. And he wasn't the president's son. And I wasn't famous enough to have paparazzi chasing me. and we would just live very normally. What emotions come with being the other woman and having an affair? Like what were you mentally feeling during that time of your life?
26:14I was so in love and so happy that I don't know that I ever focused too much on this other woman idea because I didn't feel like I was. Why did it end? They basically gave him a choice of staying with me or staying with the family. And did he articulate that to you? Potentially. Our last conversation, I had taped it, so I'd listened to it back with my therapist. I haven't listened to it in a long time, but there was a lot of explaining of things then, and then Michael kind of explained to me what was happening on that back end. And this guy, Michael. Yeah. Can you explain who he is? So Michael Cohen was like a very trusted attorney on the inside.
26:55that would, you know, they would depend on to clean up messes for them. And he was the Trump family attorney. I believe so. I don't know what the technical realities of that were. But, you know, he kind of doesn't want to be seen as this Ray Donovan fixer type guy. And he knows that I didn't experience him like that. But he was fixing something at that time. So it was interesting to get his perspective. But he was like, you always worked with me and you always did anything. I asked you to keep it out of the press. Right. Right. And to protect the family and to protect a man that you loved. And Don was not strong enough.
27:28He wouldn't have he didn't want to leave you. And I asked you to to leave him and to go away. And you did. And I'm like thinking to myself, I did the fuck? I don't know. I didn't remember that I did that. I don't I didn't remember that I knew that we would keep it out of the press. But I didn't know that like I was part of stepping away from it. Also, I think I remember it as like abandonment. and it was like overnight and there was nothing prior to that that ever would have told me like he was the one that was pushing he was the one that was calling me soulmate well before I even thought of him that way he was the one with the I love you's and the being together and having a baby and everything else like he was the one driving that it's so interesting to hear you talking about this because it's literally like what you see on tv shows like I get what you're saying Ray Donovan if no one knows what that show is like he's a fixer to people and like Hollywood would in politics and so to hear you talking about like one day you're having this affair but it doesn't even feel like an affair because you're being told yeah the wife I have it's more of a business arrangement and like it's not actually real love but this is real love so you're you're infatuated you're in love you're happy and then one day it just ends and I don't know because I don't know if I'm reading this wrong and I'm so I'm sure maybe other people can be confused like Like, Donald Trump wasn't the president at the time.
28:50But when you ended your relationship, was it because he was currently about to be running? Those discussions were being had from what I understand. Okay. So it was kind of like everything needs to look good. We need to start to... They had a good amount of... They had a period of time where they were cleaning up all the messes. And Michael was the man in charge of doing that. And in their eyes, you were one of the messes. To somebody there, yeah. How does that make you feel like being a part of like almost like the politics? I mean, then we went on to see it with Donald Trump, like all the things that have been hidden and with the women and you were in the middle of parts of that.
29:28Like, how does that make you feel? I feel sadness for who he became. I'm a liberal. I am a social justice warrior. I'm very outspoken when it comes to my feelings about protecting underdogs giving people a voice that don't have as big of a platform And so on and so forth. I have a bleeding heart for people I'm an empath like I I have all these attributes and if don was who he is now That wouldn't be something that he would likely be attracted to and I wouldn't have been attracted to what I see now So I try to tell people like you believe that I am who I am, right? You believe that I am steady in this.
30:06I am overspoken in life about the way that I feel about things to a point where it turns people off because I don't stay politically correct about anything. So you can imagine I've been that way since I was a child. So if he were the person he is now, I wouldn't have liked him and he wouldn't have liked me.
30:40So you're basically saying like it's a facade and a character that he has to play. I don't know but I think so. When I first started seeing it I was so sad for him because I felt like he sold out. And he was so interesting and I think could have been so successful breaking away from that family and just being him. He's gotten into a lane where he's such a joke. They kind of gave him the QAnon crowd as his fan base. And he's just playing into that nonsense so loudly. And part of me sometimes thinks he believes it. He's very smart. He could likely talk himself into many places. There was one part of him that I probably could have doubted.
31:20And nothing else but this one part. And the one part was his defensiveness and weakness and needing to please his father. He was just so weak in that area. And it was always like coming up in these discussions in a very defensive manner. And I didn't see him behaving that way with any other topics. So I don't know if it's for the love of daddy or because he wanted to have this platform that he now has. He didn't do anything good with it though. So what's the point in having it? Did you meet his siblings? I met, obviously, I met the whole family. I can only give you my opinion. Of course.
32:05But there's a lot of competition. I don't know how much they genuinely like each other. That could have changed by now, but at that time. And they were always raised in this very competitive environment. So can competitors have moments where they become friends or have respect for each other? Sure. But there was a lot of rivalry occurring. Michael also witnessed a lot of it in the same manner that I did. Um, it just to also wrap that up, because it's interesting in the beginning of the interview, we were talking about people that can like suck the air out of the room. Right. We talked about it with Diddy.
32:41You mentioned Hugh Hefner and Trump was one of them that you got to be in a room with him before he was the president of the United States when he was hosting his reality show. What was your experience with him?
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32:56Hmm. Um.
33:02He was, well, okay, so in the very beginning of that show, I was being like very fashion forward. So I was doing like different unique things with my hair and wardrobe. And then they were going to fire me one night. It was between me and like Miss Universe, I think, or something like that. A pretty girl versus the not pretty girl in his eyes. And he was making that blatantly clear. My hair and makeup were like behind the scenes watching the cameras and got to hear the entire dialogue and then told me later I was the only one with my own hair and makeup. So they shouldn't have been in that back room because they would tell me everything but I got to hear the conversation about Keeping the pretty girl over the not pretty girl, but the not pretty girl was smart and the pretty girl wasn't as smart And from what I understand Ivanka was defending me.
33:55Don was defending me, but Trump did not like the way I looked and then I was approached by the two female producers and they said hey you're the youngest person we've had here you're running circles around everyone but Trump doesn't think you're pretty so I need you to part your hair down the middle and push your tits out and wear a tight dress and so I started doing that you see in the in the show I was like wearing suits and my hair was in all these like dynamic things and then at one point all you see after that is parted down the middle how interesting funny to go from what we've said earlier was you never felt like that like blonde bimbo but you played the part when it became more evident through making the band you were like the beautiful one but then it became more fixated on your look so you would play that up more did you and then you go on celebrity apprentice and you're saying you're wearing suits and changing your hair up which probably i'm assuming made you feel more like take me seriously for my brain this is not about my looks we're here for a job and then to find out Donald Trump is like I want to see her fucking tits and her hair looking so she's hot and then all of a sudden you have to go right back to that blonde bombshell role it was very hard for me because I respected those two women so much and I want to be behind the scenes and be a producer at some point and think that I'd be like probably more effective there and seeing two women that like were at the height of the game they were working for one of the biggest people and biggest production companies around and they were like still telling me hey listen this is what you need to be as a woman and and I remember going home and like I cried a little and I was like I hate this industry and I hate like I was on such a high I was winning everything I was like excelling and killing it and I thought like finally I'm in this zone where people are like paying attention to my mind because I've never been like attached to my looks I didn't even really think I was that pretty I I never have been like, oh my God, this is my moneymaker.
35:49I don't care about it at all. And then once you changed your looks, I was the last girl standing. Damn. Yeah. So like what do I think about him? Pretty easy to manipulate if that's where the mentality is. I think that likely there are other people that are running things and behind the scenes, potentially one of the kids. I think that he was like a creepy old guy that just wants pussy and Big Macs.
36:30But the intense presence that he has in the room was there. But the conversation never aligned with that. So it wasn't someone like, whereas Diddy could prove himself when he would have that type of energy. Right. and Hugh Hefner I don't know I was only around him when I shot Playboy but he had that same energy but um but yeah I think like I think maybe Donald Trump's was a lot of smoke and mirrors whereas Diddy is a very talented man so so like the smoke and mirrors aspect of him it was not something I respected and then once I loved Don and learned about the whole family in detail then I was like yeah this this is no good and then when they were running the country I was like this is really no good and I would wake up every day just like there were certain things that were happening that only I had information on like no one else had been in a moment where somebody was discussed that is now being seen at the White House with Trump wearing the red hat but I know what they were calling him behind his back aka Kanye can you talk about that a tiny bit I can just say that like there were conversations about people that I heard um and then those people ended up going hard and representing him.
37:45I saw Kanye in the White House and I just was like, I can't be in this country anymore. It's too fake. So you're saying you heard conversations from the Trumps about Kanye. I heard a conversation that was like, um, I knew Dawn's feelings about people. And, um, when I saw them like interacting, I just really felt like shell shocked. Like, It's all fake. Yeah, it's all fake. I don't know what, you know, whatever Kanye felt in that moment might have been very real for him. But I know it was happening like prior. So to me, I was just like this, this whole thing is so fake. And I don't even feel like I could at all make a dent in how bad it's gotten.
38:28And I just didn't want to be here anymore. Right. Does it freak you out to be connected to one of, unfortunately, the most powerful families in the world? And like you were a part of something. you're sitting on a podcast right now you have information like does it freak you out no but I have had a lot of people that were very concerned there were a few really strange moments like um you know I obviously am the daughter of attorneys so I have receipts on everybody um and my phone was wiped right after I said something very controversial and And people around me were like, make sure you have proof of all the things you said just in case, which I do.
39:16But as I was like looking for it on my phone, my entire phone blacked out. I don't know if that's just magic, something accidentally happened, or if there's something more sinister happening. But there were like moments where I was like, I even asked Michael, I'm like, could they have had somebody outside? because his cellmate in prison was the guy who leaked, what's the girl from Hunger Games? Oh, Jennifer Lawrence's moods? Yes, he was the guy that leaked them, and how he would get them is by sitting outside of her apartment or wherever she lived and waiting for her phone to be on a certain mode where they could access the cloud or whatever.
39:59So there are people that park outside of your home and potentially do shit like that. So is it like beyond my comprehension that something like that could have occurred in that moment? I don't know. But for like a week, I just was like looking everywhere paranoid. But I don't believe that the type of people that could potentially do something like that that are associated with them care too much about what Dawn did before being in office. I thought like when when we started seeing all of daddy's girlfriends come forward or one night stands come forward When I I did not know anything was leaking I was at the store getting lucky charms because I was shooting a fashion nova campaign for fucking Irish day What is it called?
40:44St. Patrick's Day because i'm irish and so I was like, oh i'm gonna put on the little Like tacky lingerie and go sit in a bathtub of milk with lucky charms around me and do some really creative shit So I was in the store looking like ass going to get lucky charms and I walked out and there was like Flashes like tons of cameras and I was like I went back inside the store and I was like bitch get it together You are not that famous that you would not have fucking 60 people taking your photo light That was not about you cuz get it together take the ego down So I walked outside again and it was And I was like, okay bitch that was about you.
41:18I went back inside the store. I got opened my phone which was on silent I had like fucking 600 messages of everyone being like, get inside now. I had no idea. And just like that, like I, they were lined outside of my house to the point where I would have my neighbors go give them packs of beer. They would be sending me DMs like, Aubrey, we're not leaving. We've been told not to leave. I've been out here for a week. I have a wife and children I'm trying to get home to. Can you just fucking walk outside and let us get a goddamn photo? We'll split the money with you. And just to clarify for everyone that doesn't understand what you're saying, why was this happening?
41:51Because the affair had been put out into the media. Do you think you would ever get back with him if you sat in a room with him and found out he actually is still the same guy? It's just all a persona? I have mixed feelings about that, if I'm being completely honest. My gut is to say no, because once you've gone as far as he's gone and said the most ridiculous shit that he's said, it's embarrassing, and it's not something that I even respect. And if that's what you did in order to get your platform or whatever, if this is a power move, it's not very powerful. It's kind of lame. So my, my gut is to say no, but have I ever been loved like that by anyone else?
42:31No. And I don't have, um, don't talk to my mom. I don't talk to my dad. I don't know any other family members outside of them really. So I'm this like loner walking the earth, looking for people that become my people one day. And because I was in this industry and so many intense things happened to me throughout that process like I didn't really get to have those 20s and 30s where you find your group of girlfriends and I try to tell people nowadays I'm like I'm 38 like I can't just walk up to a group of girlfriends and be like hey guys can I join the group like it's not gonna work like that and and and everybody tries to just act like that's a possibility and I need to speak it but I'm not walking up to a fucking group of 38 year old women and being like hey can I join and I I get that and i get then why there is this like want to have such a romantic relationship that not that person's not just going to be you know the person you're having sex with this is like your partner and your best friend and so i appreciate you sharing the details of your relationship with don because you gave some like really interesting concrete explanations as to like what it was behind the scenes one of your other relationships was with Pauly D the DJ from the Jersey Shore were there any similarities between your relationship with Donald Trump Jr and Pauly D
43:54no zero you've said in the past that your relationship with Pauly D was incredibly toxic what kind of abuse did he put you through so I'm careful about this topic because he's got a daughter that I care for so I don't uh I don't necessarily clarify all of the things but um I can just simply say it was fucking miserable and I'm happy that it's over and and if I'm taking accountability and and and able to talk about it now with like a bird's eye perspective I was very sick to allow what was happening to happen and because of all kinds of unprocessed trauma that occurred in my childhood and after that for long periods of time in the industry I think at that time I was like I've never sacrificed my career for a man so I'm going to now because I want to I want to get married and have children so that with the combination of how he is meant that I I went in knowing I was going to sacrifice and everything that he wanted me to be was expected of me so I was sacrificing so much that I lost my backbone it started small it just was controlling things like I can't show my cleavage on the internet I have to unfollow everybody because we can only follow each other I unfollowed like 100 ,000 people and it was expected to be done by a certain moment like it was just things like that where I was like this is really insecure and whack but I want to compromise I wanted to you know be in this place and kind of this idea of do you want to be a hoe or a wife was always presented to me and that's was the bottom line to forcing me to change everything that I was and he kind of paints it like uh oh yeah I don't my my my rules are simple don't be a hoe and be loyal to your man those weren't really the rules the rules were much more intense and there were punishments if the rules were not followed and there were very like Polly and my mom have direct similarities like in a sick way the push and pull of the love and then but it's like there is no actually push and pull it's you're constantly having to give to that person and if not there's moments and work around their like uh stories that they're telling about their life and themselves that I know are not accurate.
46:29So it's like being around somebody that does not have the same awareness that you do, self-awareness that you do. There was insincerity on my end too. That's right around the time where this internet phenomenon and Instagram and these couple goals ideas started happening, right? Like Valentine's Day, the Kardashians have run that holiday for everybody. Unless your fucking man has got Kenny G and an 1800 individual roses plucked into a fucking vase. He ain't shit. So then you just look at your man on Valentine's Day, like, dude, Chloe got this. What the fuck? Why can't I get that shit? So like, and then like, you know, all the Instagram girls that wish they were Kim Kardashian come forward with their fake relationships and they all have matching outfits and they're matching cars and the matching fucking flowers.
47:18If you really are in a happy relationship on Valentine's Day, you're fucking and eating Chinese food in bed with your fat bellies out laughing and watching some TV. You're not posing and fucking matching Jordans in front of cars. You know how long those photos take to shoot? It's miserable. And I faked miserable photos as if I were in a happy relationship all the time with Polly. So I know what it is. I want to say I really appreciate what you're saying because I can imagine it's exhausting. I guess my only comment really, and I'm trying to think as interviewing you, why do I want to know this?
47:50And to be honest, it's because everyone looks at him as like this great guy, Pauly D from the Jersey Shore. And yet there's this dark side behind that's this abusive person. And I guess I'm just wondering, how does that affect you seeing how he's so glamorized and loved and he's the goofy guy and you were in a nightmare with him? So I have two different feelings about it. One, it sucks. I've never really been believed when I talk about it to this day. I mean, because I'm being a little bit more specific about certain things, I am getting a lot of people that if you've been abused in any type of mental abuse, physical abuse, if you've been in an abusive, toxic situation, you don't just say, hey, I saw your interview.
48:38Great job. They'll write me two pages of, I went through exactly what you just said. I went through exactly what you said here. Go to your text messages and type in consequences on the search. and every single text message with the word consequences was from Polly. If you do this, this is what's going to happen in return to you. And it's usually cheating or whatever the punishments are. And usually it's because they wanted to do that anyways. And there's a whole gaslighting circle that gets you blocked and then in some pussy for the weekend. If I had just known to look for just a few things, if I would have known that these things truly mean that this person is not ever going to be capable of loving me, I would have bounced.
49:14And I never would have wasted that time. and that's the one thing that I'm angry about is like the time wasted. And I have to be angry at myself for that because I could easily have left. I appreciate when people come on and are really open because I know so many young women write into me and ask me questions about like, how do I know? Like, what are the signs? Like, what should I look for? Have you been in an abusive relationship mentally or physically? I was in a mentally abusive situation where I was with like a serial cheater and it was the gaslighting where like no I love you like that was not what you found like on the iPad and I and I was like essentially I was completely not able to talk to my family I stopped talking to them they were like where did our daughter go like what's happening and I didn't see it at the time because it was like no you guys just don't get it like you don't understand and when I found out he was cheating the first time I remember like you think you know what you're gonna do and I like it's me Alex call her daddy girl I'd be like fuck you I'm out and I remember I didn't tell a soul and I just sat in the room and I it's like embarrassing for me to look back and think about because I'm like but I now know like I couldn't have seen it that way in the moment I was so hurt I was so brainwashed almost of like the the love that I was gonna get back if I just stuck it through and maybe it will get better now because now that I know and we're gonna talk through it it's the goals they set a goal and you're gonna have extreme happiness if you get to this flag so you're running running running to get to that flag and the second you get to the flag they move the flag over here then you're running running running because you know that happiness is coming you know that they're going to be great you know that this is good this has the potential to be all these things you want and then the flag comes over here can you you mentioned which I really appreciate you said had I known these certain things I would have bounce what they are yeah so anyone that is asking you to dull your light so like um you know it it came down to appearance clothing I mean these things were so big and they're not anything to me so I would compromise on them but the second that you show somebody who has that mentality that you're willing to compromise to what they want they will never stop doing that to you you have to train men in the first month it is highly important that you let them know exactly how this fucking relationship is going to look period you need to train them maybe I take responsibility that I did not train him well enough in the very beginning and that I accepted a lot of the shit because I felt like I didn't think they were they felt small to me in the beginning they got bigger and bigger and the asks got bigger but in the beginning and by the way maybe I'm just the wrong person for him and maybe everything that I am freaked him out to the core because I am open I am like very I don't play a character like he does I'm me all the time there's no secret anything that happens behind the scene I'm very open about all of my bad and good days more so about my bad days um so like I think that um if a man is trying to get you to change small things don't think that it's going to stay small it will get bigger um the isolation thing is a big thing I wasn't allowed to hang out with gay men because gay is not really gay gay or just straight men that want to see some titties So I had to cut off my makeup artist because I I changed in front of him one time and that was unacceptable so I lost my favorite makeup artist like um People and then and then slowly but surely like either you're being isolated or expected to always be where they Feel safe that you're there And then like if I like I didn't I couldn't have male friends that was absolutely not happening I couldn't like guys on Instagram like producers that I work with that just won a Grammy I couldn't acknowledge it when I did it did not work well for me it was a big punishment that was horrible so like there were all these like just slowly kind of stripping away these ideas and it was always presented to me as do you want to be a hoe or a wife this is what hoes do this is what wives do well if a man ever says that to you leave him immediately because there is no such thing as a hoe and a wife.
53:25I know plenty of women that are freaks, that are wives, that are doing all kinds of wild shit. And I know plenty of girls that are sexually free and they would make incredible wives. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that because I definitely... If I'm a man, I hope my wife is a hoe. Yeah, come on. Good God, if I'm married to a prude, my dick's gonna go unsucked my entire marriage. Yeah, the ex that I had experienced that with would always say that to me you can't post that on instagram like you look like a slut like do you want to be my girlfriend or do you want to be a slut and i'm like well i thought you just like liked someone's bikini picture the other day right why can't i right we were at the beach like it's it's very but i i really think you did a great job of articulating it which is all of a sudden you start to make a little it's lit it feels little in a moment but it's a compromise you're like oh i guess but it's always you doing it yeah you never find yourself asking them and them actually changing for you.
54:21Yes. And that's where, that's where I feel I need to hold myself accountable because once I saw that he was never going to ever do anything for me and it was always going to be the expectation that I change, I should have left, but I was sick. I was lost in these ideas that I landed in this place with this guy that's successful and I'm successful. And we're both these MTV babies and we're going to have famous kids and we're going to post all the Instagram photos and no one's going to see me fail. And I wanted what I really wanted before I started dating him was to get out of the industry. I did not want to be a celebrity, did not want to be Aubrey O'Day.
54:54I did not want to do any of that anymore. So like I thought, how can I not be that person and still not have anyone look at me like I failed or fell off? I didn't continue to fight for the goal, the dream, but I didn't want it anymore. And I couldn't, I didn't understand that. So like I saw being with him as this nice resting place of like, no one will ever have seen me fail or sweat and and I would just walk into this little life that was glamorized and people wanted to watch it I think that makes a lot of sense and even going back to how you started saying like I don't have a relationship with my family I'm an only child I really wanted to get married I wanted to create a life I think that everyone listening and watching you have to be easier on yourself when you have that hindsight it's like yeah it's always 2020 of like whoa but in the moment if you have things that you really want within yourself you're going to make compromises sometimes in an unhealthy way to try to make it fit into the idea of what you want it to be and so I appreciate you taking accountability but I do think it's like accountability of like an understanding but not being too hard on yourself because those situations when you get in it with someone like that they are so fucking good at what they do and you had no fucking chance imagine Pauly D the guy who doesn't own a book that never had an intellectual conversation with me a day in his life is the smart guy that is so good at doing what he does it blew me the fuck out of the the park like I just did not see this guy ever being able to have mental control over me and that is something that a lot of successful women have experienced and then do not talk about because they are in shame of that because do you know what it's like for me to tell my intellectual friends that poly d did a number on my mind i get it it's embarrassing yeah i understand that
57:09you didn't have sex for three years after breaking up with Polly D what happened so in that relationship there was the first cheating person I actually I don't remember she was yeah I think she was the first the girl who said that uh Offset got her pregnant during Cardi B's marriage with Offset this girl came forward and said Offset got her pregnant and it was like this horrible thing that cardi b had to go through in front of the world that girl is like i don't know her nickname she's like called the black widow or something it's like younger generation shit but she's a she fucks people's boyfriends and then comes forward to the media so she was the first person i actually experienced her before she did that shit to cardi b um and she had text messages she had everything dms and whatever to prove to me um and it turned out that he had fucked he had hooked up with her but not when she said they hooked up and she had like minute screen manipulated the data or whatever um and I was able to get her because um Polly had a dick piercing that he took out during a something that he did and I was like don't put it back in now that you've had it out I don't like it um and so she was saying that after that part that she had she was like I was like oh can you just tell me what his dick ring looked like and she was like I don't know but when it was clean clanging in my mouth I could taste it blah, blah, blah.
58:29And I was like, okay, she's lying. So the first one was a lie. And, but he was reaching out to her again, but did they have sex or anything during that time? I don't think so. So then that kind of showed me, it played games with me because somebody did lie. So was everybody lying? Because there were many women after that. So what happened was, is in the beginning, there were videos of one of the situations. After that, all of the phones are taken from the girls that go up to the suite after the party and they're put in like buckets or whatever at the door and the assistants have them. So after that, I could never have any proof.
59:09There was never anything on video that I could actually under see proof with like I had prior, but the phones were being taken at the door. So, so I would, these girls would come like clockwork. I was arguing with cocktail waitresses with tattoos all over their faces about whose pussy is better. I mean, it got so ignorant and cheap. I did not feel beautiful. And because I was not able to look beautiful because he didn't want makeup. He didn't want outfits. He didn't, I couldn't be in bathing suits. I couldn't have anything sexy on. Like, so I could never show up like Aubrey. I had to show up like the down, like head down, not looking at anyone, not being flirty and romantic and loving to a child, to a woman, to an older lady, to a guy.
59:54I'm just a natural flirt. I have that energy. I couldn't be any of that. So I just had to shut down and like kind of mosey in while all the girls that he fucks are looking at me. And I would just feel like, why can't I be these girls that you're going and hooking up with? So what I started to do was just have like extreme amounts of sex with this man so that I thought his dick would be so tired that he wouldn't want to fuck anyone on the weekends. And then I also made it like a thing that like he could not drink anymore because that's usually when things were happening. So that happened, that was cool for a second.
1:00:30And then, um, one morning I, I went into the bathroom to go to the bathroom. He would leave at like four or 5 AM to go to a gig. And he was shaving his pubes in the shower. And I was like, okay, that's not, that does, that's not right. So I like peeked my head in the shower. I'm like, Hey, why are you shaving your dick right now? You're going on a gig for two days. Why would you need to have your dick shaved and he was like because I always have it shaved I'm like your shit has been hairy for the past fucking two months and now all of a sudden you're shaving it all off when you leave the pussy that it goes in I couldn't take it anymore I was so angry and like it's one thing if it just happened another time or it was happening every weekend and it was like there isn't anyone on earth that has this many coincidences at a certain point everyone in my life was like Aubrey you're not going to have proof because they're taking the phones and this is definitely occurring this is not normal and his thing to me was always I'm a celebrity and everybody wants to be with me and girls lie all the time and they talk shit and you have to be strong and you have to know your place and you can't fucking react like this so it was like all of these games and I would be so tired and I would just pray that he didn't cheat not even because I gave a fuck about him anymore but just because it would ruin my entire week and then it would happen again on the weekend I was just in like turmoil and chaos I had very few times where I could like lift out of it and try to believe in him but I was still searching his bag every time he wasn't in the room I'd find condoms in it why do you have condoms in your fucking bag like it would just be thing after thing after thing and it was just like I just couldn't ever feel comfortable in this like I was just over utilizing my body and sexuality to in all kinds of different ways and things to get him to not want to do that where are you at now with working through the trauma of just that whole relationship well I think after I mean it was it was it went on for a while so by when I got out of it I went straight to touring and making albums I was not processing it and I was also taking extreme amounts of ambient so anytime I felt pain I just took an Ambien.
1:02:41So once I was taking like 16 Ambien a day or more, I just knew I was going to die. I felt like it was coming and I didn't really care. I like talked to my friends. They all were like scared and sad. And I was like, you guys can go 5150 me. You can put me somewhere. You can call somebody and try to get something to happen. But I'll just it's not ever going to be anything you have control over stopping. So don't feel guilt over it. I just have done everything I want to do in life and I'm sad and I did it all and I never found a place of happiness and I'm alone and I know my dogs will be safe with my assistant.
1:03:18And I just was like, okay, if I went to sleep and didn't wake up, I wasn't like making plans to do it, but I just knew every time I had to take more pills to fall asleep that like maybe this one more pill will just allow me to be put down. and that's when I went to Bali and it took me like two months to stop taking all medication. I went to an Ayurvedic, uh, pancha karma, which is like 14 days of like intense, basically like Indian medicine. So you would be, everything's natural. You grow everything that you put on your body. You grow everything that you eat. Um, and you're doing Bikram. You're doing, um, like Wim Hof ice baths.
1:04:03I was doing Reiki healing, theta healing, breath work. Like all of these things for the entire time I was gone were just like building myself back into a place where I was comfortable. And I left and I didn't have wigs, makeup, nothing. I was safe to walk around there. There's not people taking my picture. I didn't have to worry about leaving the home and having some photo altered where I look crazy. So I felt free, but I would come in the mirror every day and be like, I'm so ugly. like I just could not feel pretty until this woman one day my Bikram teacher gave me a compliment she's like you're so beautiful and I was in my mind I was like oh god what does this bitch want and then I was like wait this isn't a bitch she gave me a compliment she doesn't want anything from me I'm not in LA and I'm not in the industry so I can receive this as truth and then I went in and I like noticed that I had pretty skin and that was the first time that I remember saying something nice to myself in 20 years.
1:04:58And from there, I started to build a foundation of self-love. And then once you have self-love, you can have a bad day, but it's never really that bad. It's really interesting as I'm putting all this together and listening to your story, like someone always has something to say about your body and the way that you look, Aubrey. And so there's this fixation. And I remember in the pandemic in August of 2020, photos daily mail photos of you walking your dog in the middle of a global pandemic and people had negative things to say about how you looked what do you remember about the day that those photos were taken and the feedback so I was at home though those photos were like sat on for weeks likely altered because it did not look like that but I was at home and my best friend came to my door and she was like panicked and I was like what's I was just taking Ambien I don't even know like what I was doing except Ambien.
1:05:55And I was like, what's going on? And she's like, I opened the door and she's like, wow, they did you fucking dirty. And then she had her son with her. And her son was like, mom, everyone at my school was calling her fat today. And she doesn't even look like those photos. And I was like, what are you guys talking about? And then she was like, look, there's some photos that are released about you and it's bad. And I was like, what? And she showed them. I think I saw one of them and I threw the phone away, called my lawyer. My lawyer's like, take a photo in the mirror with your name and date whatever and I'll get on getting them taken down like to prove what I really looked like I was going on insta stories and posting my body which is just fucking like degrading frankly um but I I sat with her and her son in my living room and I was like is everyone laughing at me and she was like yeah and I was like so like is Polly sending it to his friends and they're like writing shit on it and sending it as like memes because him and his friends used to do that about ugly people and I or according to them and I was like um are they like passing the photos around laughing at me and she goes 100 % and I was like so like is Don embarrassed that he loved me and that it's like out in the world and she was like probably and I was like so like everybody that wants to see me fail that's like been waiting for me to be a fuck up are they laughing at me and she's like this is literally the best day of their life and I was like wow that shit hurt so bad there was nothing I could do there was like no way to get it down once it's everywhere and and and all I was getting was just like extremely the the articles that were like coming out were like a photo when I was 17 and those photos like nothing in between no reference and also I did not look like those photos I don't know exactly what the situation was because I never was able to reach the photographer or understand any of it.
1:07:49But beyond all of that, to me, my first thought is like, what does it matter if I looked like that? Right. What the fuck does it matter? I've never come forward and told anybody to fucking starve themselves or be on a diet or look like me. I don't even care about my looks like that. I would be more mad if I came out as a Karen or a racist or some wild shit during COVID. That would kill me. Fat is nothing to me. Who cares? But it was that everybody was associating the way they saw me look in those photos to me being a failure and losing it all. Those were the connotations that were being like told with those pictures.
1:08:27And then, of course, everybody saying you're lying all on your Instagram and this is what you really look like. And then, you know, everything happens from that. You lose your brand deals. That photo, I just remember seeing it and you're right. It's like, okay, so what if that really was the photo? What if it, but let's pretend it wasn't altered. Like, so are we making fun of someone? Cause you are all saying that she looks overweight. I mean, I literally got messages from girls that were like, I really do look the way you look in those photos. So am I an obese loser too? And I was just like, that's when I stopped posting videos on my Insta story, on my story, because I was like, I don't want to get into having to pick sides as to whether I look good or bad according to the world.
1:09:11Like I didn't want to have to pick sides because then I'm telling a narrative to girls that potentially look like that photo, that they aren't good enough. And I did not want to do that. And I did not want to act like I'm trying to disassociate with it so deeply that there's something wrong with it. What do you hope people take away from this or like understand about you? If people have a misunderstanding about you, like what would you say to them that you wish people understood about you um I would say stop focusing on me and focus on yourself because when I judge people and I don't like people it's because I don't like myself the way you think about other people is a representation of you and your mind and your place in life it has nothing to do with the other people and once I learned that lesson myself, which I'm extremely guilty of for most of my career.
1:10:03Once I learned that myself, I give people the space and respect to just be who they are. And I withhold judging them. And I try to find empathy and compassion for them. And in doing so, I have a happier life. I have more peace. and I make other people feel good now instead of feel like shit. And everybody had made me feel like shit growing up and then I made people feel like shit once I got some power, which is the cycle that most people play in this industry. The second you get something, you treat other people, you make other people come up the way you did. And I try now. And by the way, that doesn't mean that I'm going to be without opinion.
1:10:48I have opinions about everything and I will let them be known. But I'm usually nowadays talking about overall ideas of what I'm seeing happen in our society versus like hating an individual human, which I don't. Yeah, I really appreciate that. And I do feel like everything you just said, it has shown through this interview. The way that you talk about yourself, the insight that you have and the ability to hold yourself accountable, but also be able to discuss what's happened to you. I have a lot of respect for you and I can't wait to see what you continue to do. Congrats on your music, all the things that you're working on.
1:11:27And OnlyFans too. That's what I was going to say. Aubrey's on OnlyFans. She's thriving. So you definitely should subscribe because you put your music video on OnlyFans, right? Yeah, you can only see the music. I did a fully nude music video for my single. So it's on OnlyFans. If you subscribe, you get it for free. Aubrey O'Day, thank you so much for coming on Call Her Daddy. Thank you. This is great. You have a great podcast. Thank you. This is my favorite interview so far. Thank you. Thank you. You're great. Thank you.
From the publisher
Aubrey O’Day joins Call Her Daddy to reflect on nearly 20 years in the industry and the toxic men she met along the way. Aubrey shot to fame on one of MTV’s most popular shows, Making the Band, and was the first person selected in the girl group that emerged, Danity Kane. She recounts body shaming, manipulation and her experience with executive producer P. Diddy. Aubrey talks about the real reason Diddy fired her from Danity Kane - and it’s not what the public was told. Aubrey doesn’t hold back during this interview. She opens up about being the other woman, and shares details about her affair with Donald Trump Jr. She shares her thoughts on his father, the former president of the United States. Aubrey compares the abuse she took from her mother to the experience she had with DJ Pauly D from Jersey Shore. She details all the red flags she recognizes now - and wished she knew then. The public has had an opinion about how Aubrey looks for as long as she’s been in the industry. She opens up about how constant body shaming has impacted her - and the low point it brought her to. Today, Aubrey reclaims control over her narrative and looks back on her story with wisdom, humility and grace.
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