Some 15 years ago, singer Usher married his ex-wife Tameka Foster.
One thing the general public agreed on at the time was that he messed up.
You’re 28, hot, super wealthy, famous.
For Christ’s sake you’re Usher Raymond.
You could have any of the baddest chicks in the world.
So why settle for an average-looking woman 9 years older with kids from a previous relationship?
The world was angry.
Sadly, it was a case of misplaced anger because only Tameka Foster got the heat.
For being the chosen one among a nation of scorned women who’d spent many nights making love to Usher in their dreams.
Black women in particular didn’t go easy on her.
Now the fact that she was Usher’s stylist made their relationship suspect on her part.
It was easy to imagine her as an opportunist who used her access to a superstar beyond professional limits.
Names like cougar, thirsty, and of course, gold-digger, would come to be Tameka’s aliases to this day.
To be honest, that was how my younger self perceived her back then each time I saw her name in the news.
Yet, Usher kept defending his older wife amidst the media onslaught.
He even dedicated his 2008 album ‘Here I Stand’ to her, just to put her critics in severe pain.
In turn, the hate against Tameka became so intense as it was starting to look like a case of kayamata.
Unfortunately, they married from 2007 to 2009.
They had a long custody battle over their two sons.
During the endless court proceedings, the world sided with their beloved R&B star, while Tameka was deemed crazy. Already, to many, she was the piece of trash that used Usher as a come up and turned around to make life difficult for him.
The system favoured Usher and he won.
She wept in court, accepted his hug and moved on.
Despite losing custody of their sons, Tameka never ever badmouthed her famous ex in interviews.
Despite his public admission that he cheated on her with one of their bridesmaids, she never said a word.
Despite being body/age-shamed by his fans, she never fired back.
In fact, she gradually faded away from the media space into obscurity, so much so that I feel very old mentioning her.
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The costly mistake : The world, including me, didn’t care to know the stuff Tameka was made of during her controversial relationship with Usher.
If there’s a list of the most successful celebrity stylists with a rich work history, she’d be somewhere at the top of the list.
She has styled almost everybody in Hollywood including, A-listers, even before Usher – and was the brain behind some of his best looks.
It’s a pity that such a ‘made’ woman was heavily portrayed as a thirsty tramp that year, because of Stan culture. You’d think she was in the league of the Black Chynas of today.
I watched a rare interview of her recently and loved how she avoided most Usher topics, and instead focused on her craft.
A very seasoned, warm and intelligent woman. And beautiful too.
Sometimes you don’t know people, until you KNOW them.
BTV reporting
Cc : BTV
