O-Town Says They Have No Connection With Diddy Despite Making The Band

From-Town makes it clear that they have no connection with Sean “Diddy” Combs.

“Of all the bands in Making the Bandwe are the only one not affiliated with it,” original member Jacob Underwood he said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, January 14. “The more people confuse us with Diddy’s band and post our pictures with his story, the more it goes against us. We make a living on tour and can’t afford to have (bookers) Googling us to find the latest Diddy clickbait.”

Underwood, 44, pointed out that he has never even met the 55-year-old rapper.

O-Town was formed during the inaugural season Making the Bandwhich aired in 2000 on ABC. During season 1, Lou Pearlman — who was the mastermind behind the Backstreet Boys and ‘NSync — is looking for the next big boy. Underwood, Erik-Michael Estrada, Trevor Penick, Angel Ashley Parker a Natural Strength are chosen at the beginning. However, Kahoano left the group and the current member Dan Miller bring it in instead. (Angel later left the group for good in 2003.)

After season 1 ended, O’Town was signed to a record label. Following the success of O-Town there will be a new season of Making the Band was in the works. However, the show left ABC and was then aired on MTV. The MTV version brought Diddy into the talent hunt where he formed musical acts Danity Kane, Da Band, Day26 and solo artist Donnie Klang.

Although O-Town was not part of Diddy’s version of the singing competition series, the group have claimed that they are suffering from a fallout amid the rapper’s current legal situation. Diddy remains behind bars awaiting trial after being indicted on sex trafficking and racketeering charges last year. Diddy has denied all the allegations and pleaded not guilty.

“We’ve already inherited our own famous producer/manager from our version of Making the Band and now we’re being affected by another version and its mogul.” To affect our livelihood several years after the brand was moved to it is so unfortunate,” Estrada, 45, told The Hollywood Reporterreferring to Pearlman’s legal scandals. In 2008, Pearlman was sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges of conspiracy, money laundering and making false statements during bankruptcy proceedings. He died of cardiac arrest in 2016 aged 62 while in prison.

The band’s agent Matte Rafale He added that O-Town had received offers “because of the perception that the group was linked to Diddy” even though he had made it clear that there was no connection between them and Diddy.

“I can’t play victim because there are people who have experienced atrocities from this person and have been scarred for life,” Estrada told the outlet. “We have financial and booking stress, but they have emotional stress. We have to take this on the chin and keep going.”