MadameNoire Featured Video

After the success of Confessions, you couldn’t tell me about 10 years ago that Usher wasn’t my husband. So when word got out that he married Tameka Raymond, a stylist I had never heard of at the time, I was super salty. It looks like quite a few Usher fans were feeling the same way, but decided to make their discontent public, criticizing Tameka for being older, having children from a previous relationship and for putting a wedge between the singer and his mother Jonetta Patton–who was his manager until he got with Tameka (Patton didn’t even show up to their wedding). It got so bad that Usher went on MTV’s “TRL” and basically scolded those who criticized his wife, and that didn’t sit well with fans.

“My wife is not 40 years old. I love her to death and I’m a black, strong man in America standing up for my people — as a man to my wife, to my son, to my family. I’m making a stand that a lot of us should make. I coulda been like any other man who has a child and live with that woman and continue to just play the game. I’m trying to do it the right way. This is the way your supposed to do it! Pay attention, fellas. And my wife had nothing to do with me firing my mother — nothing like that, that’s trash. I hear y’all talking crazy out there, she’s a beautiful black woman. Stop. Stop talking. And I love her. Stop it.”

When you have to do all that, it seems like you’re only trying to convince yourself of something…

Anywho, we know all these years later that things didn’t work out, and in fact, things between the former couple got ugly during their custody battle. But now that that’s all over and Usher has moved on and has primary custody of their sons while Tameka heals after the loss of her son Kile and is the star of “Atlanta Exes,” she spoke openly to the Rickey Smiley Morning Show about the shade she received from Usher’s stans. In the chat, Raymond said that fan disapproval of the couple’s relationship put doubt in Usher’s mind and became a problem in their marriage.

“They were never supportive to begin with. We didn’t have the love and the embrace. And I think because he was so defensive and he was trying to defend his relationship with me, it made them more mad at me. I was like, ‘Shut up already!’ I don’t know, people went really, really hard on me. And I don’t care. It’s fine.”

When asked if she thought some of the animosity towards her from fans had to do with the fact that she was older than him (he is 35 now, she is 43), she called BS.

“He always dates older. The famous girlfriends he’s had have been the same amount older. The girlfriend he has now is…yeah, older. You gotta realize, all you have to do is know publicists and you can let erroneous stories get leaked. You can drop things in the media if you want to…I’m not saying he did that, but people around and fans. A lot of erroneous stories got passed around. We didn’t stand a chance in hell.”

What did you think of their relationship back in the day? Do you think fans were too hard on them?

Your browser does not support iframes.

Comment Disclaimer: Comments that contain profane or derogatory language, video links or exceed 200 words will require approval by a moderator before appearing in the comment section. XOXO-MN