Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
How Low Can You Go
Fri, 30 May 2025
If you’ve ever wondered how perceived powerful women like Cassie, Capricorn, and “Mia” could fall victim to the abuse they’ve bravely testified about—Aubrey understands. She’s lived her own versions of it. In this raw and revealing episode, Aubrey opens up about her own harrowing experience when love crossed the line into control and cruelty. Through her personal experiences exposed, with the help of trauma therapist Dr. Goldsher, they will unpack the thin, often invisible line between desire, danger, sex and shame. This isn’t just a story about survival – it’s a reckoning with the silence that keeps too many victims in the dark. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Amy and TJ presents Aubrey O'Day covering the Diddy Trial.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Amy and TJ Presents. Me, Aubrey O'Day, covering the Diddy Trial. And as always, our coverage of the Diddy Trial continues. So I just want to let everyone know that I'm flying solo today and that TJ and Amy are on a much-needed vacation. And I can't wait to announce my guest today, who I'm so excited to speak to. Her name is Dr. Hilary Goldsherr.
And she is a clinical psychologist and expert in trauma recovery and emotional healing. She has over 10 years of experience in psychotherapy services. She specializes in the treatment of couples, relationships, depression, anxiety, trauma, grief, and eating disorders. Hillary, girl, I think I have experienced almost all of these. So I am so happy to talk to you.
I got you. I got you. Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you for being here. So I specifically felt very passionate about discussing last week's testimony, in particular, the forensic psychologist, Dawn Hughes. Let me first establish Dawn Hughes testified for the prosecution. She testified to trauma bonding, delayed reporting, substance use as a coping mechanism. The internet is buzzing on this conversation. I think it's so important to...
establish with you out the gate why women stay with their abusers as it pertains to the Diddy trial.
Yeah, this is a question that's sort of floating around the culture right now. And while I'm disturbed and devastated about the alleged crimes against the myriad of women involved, I'm sort of the sort of silver lining is that we get to talk about this. The question you just asked is complex. And a lot of people, unfortunately, are having an opportunity to think through this very nuanced paradigm.
Because if you haven't been through it, or you don't know someone who's been through it, it's a fair enough question or a fair enough set of complex factors that get one who is curious and trying to understand this complex situation to ask why they don't get it. Why would someone stay when things are bad and scary? Yes. that can lead to blaming the victim or minimizing their trauma.
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Chapter 2: Why do women stay with their abusers?
You can go for it. As I was listening to her testimony, I found myself looking back on many of my relationships and understanding many of
levels to all of her uh conversation that she had include testimony that she had including um utilizing sex as a love language for somebody who had groomed and established with me that that's how i can get his attention so when text messages that say hey i want more i love you i can't live without you let's make the next one more wild this is making so many people react in a way where they think clearly she wanted it clearly she's asking clearly she was willing
And we all know that there are absolutely established events that we're not willing and that we're not wanted. But for the ones that were during cross-examination, I think it's good to start breaking down why women do that and how they find themselves in a position. Women and men, by the way, because this isn't gender exclusive.
I'm really glad you pointed that out because obviously there is shame encircling men who are victims of domestic violence, given the full of male-female roles that society establishes.
And by the way, I want to jump in with you there. When I first started this process, when Homeland Security came to me, I knew more... Potentially knew more alleged male victims than women and still potentially, you know, alleged victims. I know more men than women. It's so much harder.
And when I when I hear them discuss how what they fear and coming forward, it's a completely different set of things than women do. But we know that what females face, which is what we're seeing right now is. which is a bunch of people calling you names and making fun of the things that you would do in private sexual behavior with your partner.
And you can only imagine how much more complex it goes on the other side and all of the stigmas that are associated there. But I find that men even have a harder time Women have come out, and so it is a little bit more of a conversation.
But you do know instantly when you come out, likely the first thing you will experience is being slut-shamed and not believed if you're with somebody of a higher status, more power, or more of a fan base or a liking.
Before I get into kind of the macro buckets of why people stay, I'll start where you ended, because shame is such a thematic reason why both men and women stay. When one quote comes out via...
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Chapter 3: What psychological factors contribute to staying in an abusive relationship?
Chapter 4: How does shame affect victims of domestic abuse?
Yes, we're going to start there, right? Psychological and emotional factors. So often, not always, but often a victim of abuse comes from a family and the details and the narrative and the stories vary, the demographics, the socioeconomic status, but at the core is some version of abandonment.
some version of an internalized sense of low self-worth or low value, and either an implicit or explicit edict to find a scenario, a relationship, a partner that sort of confirms and affirms that they're OK, that they're of value, that they're worthy.
And if they end up with someone that can provide that at times, but there is emotional and physical rent to pay through verbal abuse, through physical abuse. Sometimes the person can't garner the internal resources to value their emotional and physical safety over money.
the sort of deposit of self-worth that comes when the person chooses them, when the person is kind to them, when the person is bonded to them. And this is a complex psychological sort of notion, but it boils down to pathologically low self-worth.
And self-worth also does not have a beauty standard. There are a lot of people that look at Cassie and don't understand how she could have ever had any low self-worth. She's a perfectly beautiful looking woman according to social standards. But I do want to make clear that, you know, when I would experience it, it was exactly what you said due to abandonment from childhood.
And even when I met Diddy relating this back to Puff himself, he... I've said this so many times, but if you were to ask me now, who would you want to revisit in your past of all the accomplishments you've had, whose praise would you want to revisit that made you feel the most full?
And still at 41, after tons of fucking therapy and tons of healing and moving to Bali for two years and doing every little thing that I possibly could because talking to a person and all of the other things just wasn't enough. I still would say puff.
And that's because he's just so... I keep trying to really describe this to the viewers because it seems so unreasonable almost, but he's so all-consuming. I've only met a few very powerful people in life, and I've met them all mostly, that steal the air out of the room. You almost have this palpable reaction like...
When they come in because you're gasping for air because their presence is so big. Now, in that case, that's a very extreme case of somebody absorbing a room. But I've met people on everyday levels that I can see in their relationship are just exhausting all the air in the room. It's the same type of feeling on a large scale.
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Chapter 5: What are the logistical challenges victims face?
You're talking about in part to truly get away from an abusive relationship, you have to detox, which means you have to be away from the person. And whatever that takes, whether it's moving to another country or some curation of resources amongst your community, can change from scenario to scenario, of course, but that's what you're talking about. And in the absence of true detox, i.e.
not being with the person, you're not going to be able to truly go away. Why? Because your brain will seek the, the hit of the serotonin and dopamine time and time again in a very similar way that an addict does.
And so conceptualizing that way first helps people understand as they're observing and thinking about it from the outside, but also helps people in it perhaps think about resources in a different way. Yes, who specializes in this arena is going to be very useful, but the curation of resources to help with removal. It has to be incredibly robust, which I don't want to end our time together.
I know we're not almost done, but without saying this, which is the final but critical piece that I'm thinking about around why people stay is the fear of retaliation.
And that's huge with Cassie, keep going.
Yes, empirically, empirically, data, statistics, the most dangerous period for abuse victims is when they're thinking about leaving, when they leave and in the aftermath.
The aftermath is a big one that we don't talk about enough. The aftermath, you know, you can't get those highs anymore. So you're dependent on you got to find something for the high or you got to be ripe and ready for change. And change is not an easy thing to just snap your fingers and go to. As you get older, you learn that you have more control over your brain than you think.
But when you're younger and you're still learning, I would look around anywhere and everywhere for it. And unfortunately, specifically in Cassie's case, there were so many things that that There were so many addictions around her that she had many things to overcome.
It seems like everybody had to find ways outside of Puff to move into places to move into that would provide their sense of self anymore. Sense of self meaning you can wake up and feel joy and happiness just within yourself.
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