Usher's Messy Divorce Is Final

ATLANTA — R&B singer Usher's divorce from his wife is final, according to court documents.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Bensonetta Tipton Lane issued a final decree in the divorce case Wednesday.

Usher, 31, whose real name is Usher Raymond IV, filed for divorce from Tameka Raymond on June 12. He said the couple had been separated since July 2008 and claimed there was "no reasonable hope of reconciliation" and the marriage was "irretrievably broken."

Tameka Raymond disputed Usher's claim that the couple had been separated since July 2008. She said in court documents filed June 29 that she "had every reason to believe her marriage was intact" and that the two were "intimately together as husband and wife as recently as June 6."

Usher's lawyer, Ivory Brown, said Friday she couldn't comment on the case. BJ Bernstein, a lawyer for Tameka Raymond, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

The couple have two young sons, Usher Raymond V, who will turn 2 on Nov. 26, and Naviyd Ely Raymond, who will be 1 on Dec. 11. When he filed for divorce, Usher was seeking joint custody of the boys. No custody arrangement was detailed in the divorce decree.

The couple married in August 2007 in a lavish ceremony. About 200 people attended their wedding at resort built in the style of a 16th-century-style French chateau on 3,500 hilly acres outside Atlanta.

Before the two married, Usher had a string of romances, most notably his three-year relationship with Chilli from the R&B group TLC.

The Grammy-winning artist's hits include "Confessions," "Burn," "You Make Me Wanna" and "Yeah!"

Comments

[Ponderus]

Some beards are very expensive to have shaved off.

[judyx]

Freedom, sweet freedom.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

***The couple married in August 2007 in a lavish ceremony***


Always a bad idea.

Lavish ceremony is the kiss of death for a marriage.

[the964kid]

How many millions did it cost him?

[dct1999]

He can afford it. He has two children under the age of two, raising them while respecting their mother should be his biggest concern.

[AfroGoddess]

Doesn't Usher have an album out or coming out? I don't know whether to consider him childish going into a marriage that everyone has suspected from getgo, or for bowing to public pressure to let her go.

Divorce sure won't bring back high album sells. Usher and Chris Brown need to do a "Lil Boys" comeback tour.

[Bluejay00234]

Interestingly enough he has a new song called "papers" which talks about a man wanting to file for divorce from his wife, and right on time I might add.

[BlueZoo]

"Pressure to let her go?" Are you kidding? Maybe from those who knew Tameka and, possibly, his own Mother who had warned him against this broad! Before he married this shrew, they lived across from my niece and I saw them on a daily basis. Tameka screamed at him like a fishwife and physically assaulted him for all the neighbors to witness. He never once struck her back and many men would have done so! When my niece asked him for his autograph one day, he very sweetly said yes and Tameka came flying out of the house screaming that he shouldn't sign one thing! Considering my niece is 42 years old and not the slightest bit interested in selling Usher's autograph but just getting it for posterity, this was ridiculous! This all happened in a gated community of zillion dollar homes in Atlanta! She was in it for the money and now she's got it!

[rzan1]

What was the suspicion? Was she blackmailing him? Everyone kept talking about how homely she was, and I didn't think so at all.

[AfroGoddess]

The RUMORS I heard from the beginniner were that Usher was using Tameka to cover up his down low habits. Folks were betting on when they'd split while they were dating. I actually felt badly for Tameka, and still do to some degree.

I don't think Usher was ready to not be everyone's young Prince Charming. Tameka was disliked from getgo b/c she didn't fit some image of who they thought Usher should marry. When he had beef with his mother & poor record sales, folks blamed Tameka.

Then suddenly he too has a problem with Tameka? If she was a fishwife, clearly that's what he liked. If she was mean in public, clearly that's what he liked. His divorce was an about face that has almost directly coincided with a new album coming out.

Usher has been notorious for using drama to further pump up the PR around new albums. Every album is about him somehow and what he's done, somehow. So I think that either Usher and Tameka are in cahoots and she's getting paid, or Usher is one fickle bea-bea.

[AfroGoddess]

Sorry, it should be "beginning". LOL