Beginning in 2002, Sean “Diddy” Combs sought to find new talent on the reality show Making the Band. Behind the scenes, the contestants on the show reportedly wanted very little to do with Combs. Sara Rivers, who appeared on the show, recalled his outbursts and inappropriate behavior. She said he once told another contestant that he wanted to eat her flesh because she was making him angry.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs shocked ‘Making the Band’ contestants with his behavior

Rivers appeared on Making the Band between 2002 and 2004. She recalled Combs’ temper and the outrageous things he would say to contestants when he was angry.

“When he got angry with one of my band members, he said, ‘You make me so mad I want to eat your flesh,”’ Rivers recalled in the Peacock documentary Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy. “And then he said to another one of my band members, he said, ‘You’re rolling your eyes, I could go get a crackhead and pay them $20 to smack the s*** out of you.’”

She could hardly believe anyone would say that sort of thing to another person.

“Who says that?” she said. “That’s crazy.”

The ‘Making the Band’ contestant didn’t like to be alone with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

Rivers said she also avoided being near Combs when cameras were not rolling. She alleged that he touched her inappropriately while on set.

“The incident basically, I was by myself,” Rivers recalled. “He touched me in a place that he shouldn’t have. That was inappropriate. I felt intimidated, I felt like, ‘Oh my god, what the heck just happened just now?’”

She didn’t speak about the incident for years and it became a burden on her.

“I’m definitely nervous, because like I said I haven’t said anything for so long and it’s built up,” she said. “It’s been 20 years of going through my mind. This has happened, that’s happened, this was stopped. Mentally draining.”

Aubrey O’Day has also made accusations about him

Aubrey O’Day, who also appeared on Making the Band, said that working with Combs was a torturous experience. While she appreciated what the show brought her, she did not like working with him.

“You 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,” she said on the Call Her Daddy podcast (via Rolling Stone). “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. There was a lot of betrayal, there was a lot of lies.”

She said there was little she could do to protect herself against his inappropriate behavior.

“Diddy would be like, ‘You’re not hot anymore. Like, what happened? You don’t have any curves. I can’t get people to think you’re my good-looking person,’” she said. “And there was no #MeToo at that time. There was no protecting anyone at that time. You signed a million NDAs and a million contracts that took away your rights.”

How to get help: In the U.S., call the RAINN National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 to connect with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.