Usher and his wife are to separate after just over two years of marriage, the pair revealed in a joint statement which was released today. In their statement – which was released to Us Weekly magazine – they said: “After much thought and consideration we have mutually decided to separate as a couple. We remain deeply connected, loving friends who will continue supporting each other through the next phases of our lives. The enormous amount of love and respect that we have for each other will only increase as we move forward.”
A source added to the publication that the couple – who married in quiet in September 2015 – have been separated for “a couple of months”. Usher proposed to Grace in January 2015, and the pair eloped later that year and spent their honeymoon in Cuba. Usher and Grace began dating in 2009 after Usher split from his first wife, Tameka Foster, with whom he shares 10-year-old son Usher Raymond V and nine-year-old son Naviyd Ely.
The divorce comes after Usher was hit by a $20 million lawsuit in August last year from two women and a man who claimed he had put them at risk of a sexually-transmitted disease. The lawsuit was later dropped after a recorded phone call was revealed in which one of the women admits to having used protection during her relationship with the musician. Laura Helm’s phone call was recorded two days before filing the lawsuit against the star, and after her first attorney dropped out of the case. Her replacement immediately filed legal documents to dismiss the suit. In September, Usher filed a response to the lawsuit through his lawyers in which he denied their claims that he had sexual contact with them or exposed them to herpes.
