Why are We Talking About This Now?

When Usher divorced his wife, Tameka Foster Raymond, a month and a half ago, I was a bit shocked but the split did not come as a total surprise to me. It did surprise me that Usher would leave his wife so soon after she faced a fatal situation earlier this year. And it also surprised me that he was seen all over the place after filing papers, drinking, having fun, and enjoying his new bachelorhood. I just thought Usher had a little more heart than that.

But the divorce itself did not surprise me. There was major drama there and it would take a really, really strong couple to come through it unscathed. And Tameka and Usher just didn’t seem all that strong to me. Tameka did seem sort of materialistic and while I think she may not have been in it completely for the money, I don’t think that hurt either. But I think the biggest obstacle they faced was Usher’s mom, who was so disgraced by the marriage that she couldn’t even attend the wedding. But those are just my thoughts. According to Tameka’s best friend though, there was simply too much pressure on the relationship, making it impossible for it to survive. From US,

“More than a month after Usher filed for divorce from his wife of nearly two years, Tameka Foster Raymond, her best friend tells Usmagazine.com exclusively what did — and didn’t — cause their marriage to end.
“It’s very, very challenging to have a relationship … that’s sort of ‘normal,’ but the existence that they had was far from normal and there was just a lot of scrutiny and a lack of support for their marriage for some reason,” Nyeisha Dewitt tells Us. “I don’t know what role that played in it, but I just know that it’s very difficult sometimes when you are in that situation to overlook some of the insanity that’s going on outside of the relationship and the pressure that it imposes within the relationship.”

Still, rumors circulated that Foster, a stylist, married the Grammy-winning artist for his money.

“To say that she’s a gold-digger … that’s just not the case,” her best friend says. “That just totally discredits her as a professional, as an entrepreneur, as a creative thinker, and it just totally destroys anything that she took her money and time to build.”
Usher, 30, and Foster, 38, have two sons together — Usher Raymond V, 21 months, and Naviyd Ely, who was born last December. Foster also has three sons from a previous relationship.

“People say that she just had a baby so that she could get paid,” Dewitt tells Us. “Why can’t you just be a
regular person who has a wonderful job, a great career, who’s well respected for the work that they do, and be happy with that and then just fall in love with someone? Then you turn into a gold-digger? How does that happen?”
And what about reports that Usher’s mother, Jonetta Patton, disapproved of Foster and was against their wedding?
“I have never personally witnessed any hard feelings,” she says. “I can’t say for sure whether his mom is involved in any way. I know that she is a grandmother, and that’s good. That’s good to have in your life, in your children’s lives.”

When Usher filed for divorce on June 12, Dewitt says Foster was “blind-sided.”

“They had experienced some challenges from March, but she was definitely thinking that they were working through it,” she tells Us. “I don’t believe that she felt that a divorce was eminent. She was not informed that divorce papers had been filed. She found out probably just like everyone else did.”

Now, she says Foster is focusing on her work and her children.

Dewitt, who says she loves Usher, believes the two will remain friends.

“I really think that they can be friends,” she says. “The essence of their relationship is friendship, and hopefully they can maintain that. That’s what it’s all about. They are parents. Both of them are wonderful parents, and they both love their children… I hope and pray that they can really recover their friendship after all is said and done.”

So was Nyeisha not at her best friend’s wedding? Did she not notice that Tameka’s new mother-in-law was not present? And did she not take that as a sign of hard feelings? Nyeisha also “shed some light” on some other issues surrounding the marriage in the interview. She talked about how the age difference between the two was overplayed in the media and how that caused more pressure in the relationship. She also denied any reports that Usher was gay, which I personally have never heard.

There really was a lot more denying in this interview, than there was any real telling of what really happened. I’m doubtful that it was only pressure that ended this marriage. I think that did probably play a part but when the world’s against you, like I said, you need to be pretty strong as a couple to make it through that. And they just weren’t.