Diddy Documentary Producer Hopes Making the Band’s Sara Rivers Felt Coming Forward Was ‘Cathartic’

Several Making the Band alums have come forward with allegations about Sean “Diddy” Combs over the years, including Danity Kane’s Dawn Richard and Aubrey O’Day. In the new documentary Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, Da Band’s Sara Rivers is the latest participant to share her story.

“Sometimes people will stop short and say, ‘We're not willing to go there,’” executive producer Ari Mark exclusively told Us Weekly of Rivers ahead of the film’s Tuesday, January 14, premiere. “Obviously, these things are so sensitive and hard to share. And she, I think, felt brave enough at that point to move forward and share the story.”

In the documentary, Rivers — who appeared on Making the Band 2 from 2002 to 2004 — shared new claims about her time working for Diddy, 55, as part of the group Da Band.

“When he got angry with one of my band members, he said, ‘You make me so mad I wanna eat your flesh,’” she alleged. “And then he said to another one of my band members, ‘You’re rolling your eyes. I could go get a crackhead and pay them $20 to smack the s--- out of you.’ Who says that? That’s crazy.”

Rivers, 47, also addressed the famous moment when Diddy told Da Band to walk to Brooklyn from Manhattan to get him cheesecake from Junior’s.

“We walked for eight hours over the Brooklyn Bridge,” Rivers claimed. “We went from Manhattan to Brooklyn, walking. And so I’m doing that stuff because I’m like, ‘I ain’t gonna go home, this is what I’ve been working for.’”

Later in the film, Rivers broke down while recalling that she didn’t want to be around the rapper unless cameras were present.

“He touched me [in] a place that he shouldn't have,” she alleged. “That was inappropriate. I felt intimidated, I felt like, ‘Oh, my God, what the heck happened just now?’ … I haven’t said anything for so long, and it’s built up — it’s been 20 years of going through my mind like, ‘This has happened, that’s happened, this was stopped.’ Mentally, [it’s] draining.”

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Mark told Us that he believes Rivers chose to speak out for the documentary because they could sense there was “authenticity” to the project.

“It's going to get seen, it's not going to just get buried, and I think she recognized that,” he told Us. “Hopefully, it was cathartic for her.”

While the film includes interviews with people who knew Diddy during his early years at Uptown Records, it also features conversations with people who knew him as a kid — people who knew him as simply Sean rather than Puff Daddy, Brother Love or any of the other various monikers he’s used throughout his career.

“What we try to do is we try to present the facts and hope that the audience can put those facts in the back of their head while being open-minded about this person's backstory,” Mark explained. “And then as you unpack that story, it's not necessarily that you start to have more empathy for that person, but you start to understand them in a more complex way and hopefully walk away from the documentary saying, ‘Wow, how do we avoid these types of situations? How do we live in a world where people like this are not created in this way?’”

Diddy did not participate in the film, but his attorneys issued a statement to producers, saying, “Sean Combs unequivocally denies the baseless allegations being circulated in connection with this documentary. Regarding the legal cases referenced, Mr. Combs will not comment on pending litigation. He will fight them in court, where the facts will be distinguished from fiction.”

In a statement to Us, Diddy's team added, "This documentary recycles and perpetuates the same lies and conspiracy theories that have been slung against Mr. Combs for months. It is disappointing to see NBC and Peacock rolling in the same mud as unethical tabloid reporters. By providing a platform for proven liars and opportunists to make false criminal accusations, the documentary is irresponsible journalism of the worst kind."

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The mogul has been in jail since his September 2024 arrest on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Mark hopes that the film inspires viewers to speak out about experiences they’ve had in their own lives.

“How do we give a sort of mouthpiece for the victims so that people like them who've experienced those types of things can come forward in the future and not be afraid to do so?” Mark asked. “It's probably the best thing we can do as filmmakers. My hope is that it's not so much that we're humanizing him, but that we're telling you the story of Sean as opposed to the story of just Diddy, because I think the two were inextricable.”

Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy premieres on Peacock Tuesday, January 14.

With reporting by Leanne Aciz Stanton