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Usher pulls back the curtain on the intense prep he did for his 2024 Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII halftime show in a new mini-doc that dropped over the weekend. The nearly 11-minute black and white film was shot entirely on an iPhone 15 Pro by director Mike Carson. “I think everybody is blessed with […]
Fresh off a Las Vegas wedding to his longtime girlfriend, Jenn Goicoechea, over Super Bowl Weekend, Usher is opening up about one of his first true loves in a new People magazine cover story. The singer, 45, spoke to the magazine about his intense romance with TLC’s Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, whom the “Yeah!” singer met when he moved to Atlanta from his home in Chattanooga, TN as a teenager.
Describing himself as someone who “was always charming the older ladies,” Usher said he was smitten when he met Chilli, now 53, who was seven years older than him when they began dating in 2001. “If I am to be honest, I was her No. 1 fan, and she was my superstar,” he said, adding that he had Chilli’s poster on the wall of his childhood bedroom when he was eight-years-old.
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“[I] said, ‘Man that girl is so beautiful. One day I’m going to meet her,’” he recalled saying at the time. And though meeting the woman of his dreams and beginning a relationship with her was magical, Usher said the affair ultimately fizzled because of differing priorities. “I was a young man, and she had very specific rules that didn’t work for me,” he told People of the singer who starred in the videos for Usher’s hits “U Remind Me,” “U Got it Bad” and “U Don’t Have to Call.”
“We were missing each other. I really did want to have a different type of relationship where she was there with me, and she couldn’t be,” said Usher, who wowed the crowd at Allegiant Stadium in Vegas during Sunday’s Super Bowl LVIII halftime show. “She didn’t believe that I was actually in love with her as much as I was.”
Despite the difficulties, Usher said his plan to marry Chilli went sideways. “I proposed and she told me no. I went through a great deal of pain after that, not trusting women or wanting to open up,” Usher said. “I hurt her too,” he added, noting that the split also “broke my heart.”
Usher, now married for a third time, and Chilli — who began dating actor Matthew Lawrence in 2022 — reportedly remained friendly after their split; Chilli previously told People that they were on-and-off for years after the break-up, reconnecting when they weren’t dating other people. But Usher told the mag that when it ended, he was done for good.
“We were cool with each other, but I was very careful with that,” he said. “I really did love that girl, and I was like, I don’t want to play with you. Like, ‘I can’t give you what I gave you. I did everything that I thought you would’ve wanted me to do, but I guess my good wasn’t great enough.’” But, he noted, these days the two are “cool with each other” and it’s “always light” when they see each other.
Usher dropped his new album, Coming Home, last week. The 20-track collection boasts guest spots from BTS’ Jung Kook, Burna Boy, H.E.R. and more, and is expected to compete with Kanye West’s Vultures for the top spot on the Billboard 200 next week.
It may be Valentine’s Day, but if you are really in the mood for love it might make sense to pass up those chocolates and long-stemmed roses today and save your romantic gesture for a late summer date to the inaugural swoon-worthy Fool in Love festival.
The packed lineup for the August 31 gig at Sofi Stadium-adjacent Hollywood Park in Los Angeles will be headlined by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, with a stacked roster of classic R&B and soul stars including Al Green, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan, the Isley Brothers, Charlie Wilson, the O’Jays, Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick, the Stylistics, the Chi-Lites, George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, Zapp, Kool & the Gang, Rose Royce and Morris Day & the Time, among many others.
Fans can signs up now for an access code to a presale that begins on Friday (Feb. 16) at 1 p.m. ET here; a public onsale will follow at 5 p.m. ET if any tickets remain. GA, GA+, VIP and Platinum tickets will be available with layaway payment plans starting at $19.99 down.
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Also slated to perform at the show are: Santana, Eric Burdon & the Animals, the Jacksons, War, the Spinners, the Whispers, Durand Jones & the Indications, Barbara Mason, Mayer Hawthorne, Durand Jones, the Delfonics, the Stylistics, Los Lobos, Stevie B, Heatwave, the Bar Kays feat. Larry Dodson, Cameo, Shalamar, S.O.S. Band, Dazz Band, the Legendary Blue Notes, Bloodstone, Frankie J, Con Funk Shun, the Pointer Sisters, the Mary Jane Girls and many more.
Check out the full lineup below.
Swizz Beatz has seen all your concerned comments about Sunday’s (Feb. 11) explosive Super Bowl LVIII halftime show and the hip-hop producer/rapper thinks you might need to calm down. “Y’all talking about the wrong damn thing !!! y’all don’t see that amazing dress covering the entire stadium ⚡️🚨😂😂😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨,” he wrote of wife Alicia Keys‘ eye-popping, […]
Conservative talking head Megyn Kelly was counting her blessings while watching Usher‘s glitzy halftime show during Sunday’s Super Bowl LVIII from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The former Fox News staffer and current podcast host weighed in on the “Yeah!” singer’s high-energy performance during the championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers in a pointed tweet just as Ush was wrapping things up.
“Not into Usher or this halftime show,” wrote Kelly, mother to three children, Edward Yates (14), daughter Yardley Evans (11) and youngest son Thatcher Bray (10). “However I do appreciate that my kids haven’t had anyone’s vag exposed to them on screen as they innocently wait for the football to start. (Hi J-Lo, Shakira.)”
While the former was the personal takeaway from the host of the daily SiriusXM Megyn Kelly Show, the latter appeared to be an erroneous reference to Jennifer Lopez and Shakira‘s historic 2020 Super Bowl halftime show — during the Chiefs and 49er’s last championship showdown — which drew more than 1,300 complaints to the FCC from parents, many of whom thought the suggestive dancing was inappropriate for children.
While some of the complaints about the first all-Latin SB halftime performance mentioned twerking and skimpy costumes, at no point did either singer — both of who were wearing nude hose and bikini-style bottoms — expose any private parts during the joint set that featured Hustlers star Lopez spinning on a stripper pole while wearing a skin-colored bodysuit with strategically placed strips of sparkling gems.
The responses to Kelly’s tweet seemed to suggest the that a number of commenters didn’t agree with the right wing talker, with one saying, “I’m glad my kids aren’t exposed to you” and another explaining, “J Lo & Shakira were wearing nude bodysuits. Do you also shame figure skaters & gymnasts this way? Do you not let your kids watch those sports? They’re wearing the same thing that J Lo & Shakira wore.”
One even wondered, “So you knew it was a possibility after the J.Lo and Shakira show, and you subjected your kids to the Halftime Show anyway? Sounds like bad parenting to me.”
Usher’s career-spanning set included the singer running through a glamorous, Vegas-themed set of hits, with assistance from Alicia Keys, Will.i.am, Jermaine Dupri, H.E.R., Ludacris and Lil Jon.
Check out Kelly’s tweet below.
Not into Usher or this halftime show – however I do appreciate that my kids haven’t had anyone’s vag exposed to them on screen as they innocently wait for the football to start. (Hi J-Lo, Shakira.)— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) February 12, 2024
The last time Will.i.am shared the stage with Usher during the Super Bowl was when the Black Eyed Peas headlined the halftime show in 2011. But on Sunday (Feb. 11), it was Will’s turn to be the special guest, when he hit the stage at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas as Usher’s special guest during […]
You may have missed it amid the flurry of rollerskating, confetti and parade of special guests, but during Usher‘s electric halftime set at Sunday’s (Feb. 11) 2024 Super Bowl the “Yeah!” singer slipped in a touching, subtle tribute to one of his late longtime band members. While rocking Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas with a […]
Usher is firmly in his zone on his long-awaited ninth album, Coming Home. The 45-year-old R&B veteran who is gearing up to take the stage for the halftime show at Sunday’s (Feb. 11) Super Bowl LVIII dropped the 20-track, guest-packed collection on Friday morning (Feb. 9) and it is everything you’d want from the “Yeah!” singer.
On his first studio album since 2016’s Hard II Love, Usher serves up all the low-boil seductive jams you’d expect, from the simmering not-together-but-it’s-fine single “Good Good” with Summer Walker and 21 Savage to the bubbling miss-you-much ballad “Kissing Strangers,” on which he croons, “How we go from strangers kissing to kissing strangers?”
After opening with the finger-snap, Michael Jackson-meets-Afrobeats Burna Boy collab “Coming Home,” Usher shows love to his hometown in the Billy Joel-interpolating, Latto-featuring “A-Town Girl,” which flips the Piano Man’s tony East Coast-repping 1983 hit “Uptown Girl” into a dirty south homage to a woman who knows how to twerk and skate.
There is, of course, plenty of heartbreak (the brooding “Cold Blooded” with The-Dream), disco-fueled confident swagger (“Big”), Eurosynth midtempo exhortations to keep the party going (“Keep on Dancin’”) and straight-up all-night-long sex jams (“Stone Kold Freak”).
The collection is packed with a parade of guest vocalists and rappers, from the meditative H.E.R. collab on “Risk It All” from The Color Purple soundtrack, to the seductive “Ruin” with Nigerian rapper/producer Pheelz, on which serial seducer Usher laments that his ex “ruined me for everybody,” even as he boasts that other women keep blowing up his phone. The album ends with the remix of Usher’s collab with K-pop icon Jung Kook from BTS on the latter’s earworm single, “Standing Next to You.”
And, not to worry, Ush has plenty of slow jams for those couple skates (“I Love U,” “Please U,” “Luckiest Man”) on the collection as well. Super Bowl LVIII will take place on Feb. 11 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and air on CBS and stream on Paramount+, Sling TV, Hulu+Live TV and FuboTV.
Stream Coming Home below.
Kelly Rowland is on team Jay-Z. The Destiny’s Child member and solo star spoke to ET at the red carpet L.A. premiere of the Bob Marley biopic One Love, where she was asked about Jay’s surprise comments castigating the Recording Academy for never awarding wife Beyoncé an album of the year Grammy. “Shawn Carter [Jay-Z’s […]
Celine Dion couldn’t help breaking out into song at Sunday night’s 2024 Grammy Awards. Though the pop superstar has not performed in public since her 2022 reveal of a diagnosis of Stiff Person Syndrome, after a surprise appearance during the broadcast to present the evening’s final award — Taylor Swift’s record-breaking fourth album of the […]