Source: Kevin Tachman/amfAR / Getty
The banter that Teyana Taylor and husband Iman Shumpert share on social media has always been pretty interesting. When he’s not being her biggest fan behind the keyboard, they share some risque and raunchy moments too that one can only smile at. But the exchange they had over the weekend was something of a different tone, and one we weren’t used to — at least from them.
It all started when Taylor showed some love to her friend, former Basketball Wives star Draya Michele, on her birthday. In the photo from Michele’s birthday celebration, the two get a little frisky, and Taylor says, “When the hottest girl in school let’s quiet nerdy trade take her to prom.🤓🤤 happy bday babe.”
It seemed playful and innocent enough. And then her husband jumped in.
“This is corny af” he wrote, to which she replied, “u big mad big fella.”
“This time u really tweekin,” he added. “Oms u bogus af.”
By the way, we’re not sure if “OMS” was supposed to be “OMG,” or if it was meant to express “On My Soul,” per Urban Dictionary, but he said it.
As it turns out, Shumpert meant it, too. Despite everyone looking from the outside in at their exchange and assuming it was the couple being silly, as they often are, the 28-year-old NBA star was actually in his feelings over the photos and message shared by his wife. This was made known when he followed up his comments with a full-fledged apology in his Instagram stories.
“Yesterday I was just having a moment in my feelings tripping about things that normally wouldn’t bother me,” he wrote. “Simply just missing my wife and should have never taken to social media to express that. In my wife’s defense I know she always plays like this with all of her friends and I should have never violated that trust with her. I apologize & most importantly apologize to my wife for leaving those comments under her pic.”
He could very well miss his wife as he says. Both parties are extremely busy, with Shumpert traveling and playing up to 82 games during the NBA season (if healthy), and Taylor touring her new music and filming shows and movies. As they shared with us on their VH1 show Teyana & Iman, the off-season, which is short, is when they’re truly able to spend time together.
However, one can’t help but wonder if his tinge of jealousy has something to do with the fact that they have had at least one threesome with another woman. There is a belief that threesomes are only put together to please the man in a relationship as the grouping is usually two women and a man. But according to Taylor, who spoke publicly about their bedroom practices while promoting her album KTSE, “it’s not always the guy” asking for sexual exploration in the relationship. She was just as into it as him.
“I feel like, a lot of the times, in society, we make it to where it’s always the guy that wants it,” she said last summer on Big Boy’s Neighborhood. “It’s always like, it gotta be birthday or Christmas to get that. It gotta be a holiday to get it. But it’s like, listen, I think that my husband is extremely sexy. I love to explore. Call me Dora. I’m Dora the Explorer in my marriage. I’m Curious George.”
“My husband doesn’t force me to do anything I don’t want to do,” she added later in the interview. “Sometimes I be suggesting stuff, he be looking at me like I’ve got five heads. But we also understand marriage. That’s how I feel. If you make a vow, what’s the next step? If we already humpin’ before marriage, then what’s the next step once you’re married and you done said your vows? You plan to be together for the rest of your lives? Baby, we’ve got to keep it spicy.”
But others have spoken about how trying to keep it “spicy” backfires at times. Singer Lil Mo said she participated in a threesome with ex-husband Phillip Bryant, and realized while in it, he and the other woman had been seeing one another on the low based on “the certain type of way” both parties interacted during sex.
Shamari DeVoe also made it clear that trying to open up her marriage with Ronnie DeVoe at one time was “a lesson learned.” As she said in a recent interview, “if you’re thinking about trying an open marriage, please don’t do it!!! Figure out how to get back to what brought the two of you together and speak to each other’s love languages.”
As for Shumpert and Taylor, she has been the only one to really speak confidently about the ways in which they’ve opened up their marriage. With that being said, perhaps the fact that she enjoys their encounters with other women as much as he does has left Shumpert worried. Maybe he saw that very touchy lapdance she and her dancers gave Draya Michele a few months ago, as the rest of us did. Maybe the closeness of the photos, including the fact that Michele is playing along, left a bad taste in his mouth that he didn’t know how to express, so he just publicly sulked. Or maybe, for a moment, he wondered if she might be having fun with Michele, and other women in general, without him.
Or, again, he could just really miss his wife…
Despite whatever he says is behind his comments, we’re willing to bet that going forward, Shumpert will be a lot less likely to agree to sharing his wife with others. Especially if it’s going to leave him questioning whatever they have going on, and leave him to do so in such a public manner again.
