Diddy Faced Criticism From ‘Making the Band’ Alumni and He Responded With Blunt Advice: ‘Stop All Your Crying, B****ing, and Moaning’
In the early 2000s, rapper and record executive Sean “Diddy” Combs launched the competition series Making the Band to create music’s next big group. But two decades later, Diddy came under fire after some artists spoke out about their treatment on the show — and Diddy fired back in classic Diddy fashion.
Diddy’s ‘Making the Band’ was behind groups including Danity Kane
Over the several iterations of Making the Band, new music groups were formed and launched — and some were dissolved right on TV. Some of the groups who debuted on the show include Danity Kane and Day26. On Making the Band, Diddy served as part-mentor, part-manager.
In March 2022, Day26 member Willie Taylor spoke his truth about the experience in a since-deleted Instagram post.
“Making the Band was an experience for sure,” Taylor said in the post, “but the platform and contracts were all set up for the failure of hungry talents.” He elaborated on his time on the show in the caption, calling it a “learning experience.” “You gotta understand that people will do to you whatever you allow them, so don’t let your passion drive you to the wrong destination,” he said. “Day 26/Danity Kane are talented groups but the situation in which we met was designed to to fail.”
Diddy got called out for what happened after ‘Making the Band’
Making the Band was also behind the creation of Da Band, which included member Freddy P. In an Instagram video of his own, Freddy opened up on Instagram about just how badly the experience continues to haunt him to this day.
“This year alone I’ve contemplated suicide three or four times,” he confessed. “I done pictured my brother walking in and finding me dead. I cried a few times thinking about leaving my son because I just get tired of life. But no matter what you gotta do you just gotta keep at it … there’s n****s that wanna see you fall.”
Freddy went on to direct his aim at Diddy. “This n**** Puffy is the main mothaf***in’ reason why I hate f***ing life, dawg. People don’t even understand. Like, I don’t even give a f***. I’ve never been to a point where I thought of suicide my whole life, never. I mean, I’m a gangsta.”
“I don’t even know how I started thinking like that. I done had it all and I fell to the bottom. How do you come back from that when you battling a giant?” he continued. “It ain’t got nothing to do with your skill no more ’cause your skill is 90 percent better than any n**** that’s out there right now and the world knows it.”
Diddy responded with tough ‘love’
Following Freddy P and Willie Taylor’s comments, former Making the Band alum Babs Bunny weighed in on the situation in an interview with M.Reck. “[Freddy] said that the contracts were s***ty, and they were. I definitely agree. All of us can really relate to that as far as the paperwork is concerned.”
“No, matter all the negative things, I just tried to focus on all the positive things that I learned, which allowed me to keep pushing,” she added.
Diddy wasn’t impressed with the backlash that he’d received as a result of Freddy and Taylor’s statements. He responded in an Instagram story in all-caps. “Stop all your crying, b****ing, and moaning,” he said honestly. “Hustle harder or get the f*** out of our way.”
He signed the post “Love,” which became part of his official name in 2021.
