Usher Trivia | 135 facts about the musician

Usher is an American musician who was the talk-of-the-town due to his spectacular performance at the Super Bowl 2024 half-time show.

So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about his life and career.

His full name is Usher Raymond IV
He was born October 14, 1978
He is an American singer, songwriter, and dancer
He is widely recognized as an influential figure in contemporary R&B and pop music
Usher first released his self-titled debut album in 1994 at the age of sixteen
He rose to fame in the late 1990s
Following the release of his second album My Way (1997)
It spawned his first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single “Nice & Slow”
And the top-two singles “You Make Me Wanna…” and “My Way”. His third album, 8701 (2001)
He saw continued success with the number-one singles “U Remind Me” and “U Got It Bad”
As well as the top-three single “U Don’t Have to Call”
It sold eight million copies worldwide
Usher won his first two Grammy Awards as Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2002 and 2003
Confessions (2004) established Usher as one of the best-selling musical artists of the 2000s decade
Containing four consecutive Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles-“Yeah!” (featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris), “Burn”, “Confessions Part II”, and “My Boo” (with Alicia Keys)- the top-ten “Caught Up”
The album sold over 20 million copies worldwide and was certified diamond by the RIAA
After splitting from his manager and mother in 2007, he released the albums Here I Stand (2008) and Raymond v. Raymond (2010)
Both of which debuted atop of the Billboard 200 chart
The albums spawned the respective number-one singles “Love in This Club” (featuring Young Jeezy) and “OMG” (featuring will.i.am)
An extended play, Versus, produced the top-five single “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” (featuring Pitbull)
Looking 4 Myself (2012) also debuted atop of the Billboard 200 chart
The album produced the top-ten single “Scream”
R&B ballads “There Goes My Baby” and “Climax” earned Grammy Awards in 2011 and 2013
“I Don’t Mind” (featuring Juicy J), a standalone single, reached the top-fifteen in 2014
While his eighth album Hard II Love (2016) peaked at five on the Billboard 200 chart
Coming Home (2024) was released as a first independent project
It was receded by the single “Good Good” (with 21 Savage and Summer Walker)
Usher has sold 33 million albums, 38.2 million digital songs in the United States
Internationally, he has sold 80 million records worldwide
Making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time
At the end of 2009, Billboard named him the second most successful artist of the decade
The number-one Hot 100 artist of the decade
And ranked Confessions as the top solo album of the decade
The same magazine placed him at number 6 on their list of “Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years”
In 2023, Rolling Stone magazine named him the 97th greatest singer of all time
Usher has earned 9 number-one singles
Considered an icon and sex symbol
He has been inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, the Black Music and Entertainment Walk of Fame, SoundExchange Hall of Fame, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Usher has won numerous awards and accolades
Including 8 Grammy Awards, 12 Soul Train Music Awards, 8 American Music Awards and 3 Guinness World Records
With 18 awards, Usher is the fifth-most awarded artist at the Billboard Music Awards
Usher co-founded the record label Raymond-Braun Media Group (RBMG) in a joint venture with talent manager Scooter Braun
This was the first label to sign Canadian singer Justin Bieber in 2008
Outside of music, Usher is acclaimed for involvement in humanitarian causes
Having founded the charitable non-profit Usher’s New Look in 1999
Usher Raymond IV was born on October 14, 1978, in Dallas, Texas.
His parents are Jonnetta Patton and Usher Raymond III
He spent the majority of his young life in Chattanooga, Tennessee
His father left the family when Usher was a year old
Usher grew up with his mother, then-stepfather, and half-brother James Lackey (born 1984)
Directed by his mother, Usher joined the local church youth choir in Chattanooga when he was nine years old
There, his grandmother discovered his ability to sing
Although it was not until Usher joined a singing group that she considered he could sing professionally
Believing that a bigger city would provide greater opportunities for showcasing his talent, Usher’s family moved to Atlanta, Georgia
There was a more conducive environment for beginning singers
While in Atlanta, he attended North Springs High School
At age ten, Usher joined an R&B local quintet called the NuBeginnings
The group was organized by local music promoter Darryl Wheeler
Usher recorded ten songs with the group in 1991
The ensuing album, Nubeginning Featuring Usher Raymond IV, was only made available regionally and by mail order
However, Patton took him out because, according to her, it was a “bad experience”
The album was re-released nationally in April 2002 by Hip-O Records
At age 13, Usher met A.J. Alexander at a local talent show in Atlanta
Alexander, who at the time was Bobby Brown’s bodyguard, would take Usher around and have him perform in parking lots and talent shows
Alexander invited Bryant Reid, an A&R representative from LaFace Records to see Usher perform on the television talent show Star Search
Following the performance, he arranged an audition for Usher with L.A. Reid, the co-founder of LaFace
Reid signed Usher on the spot to a contract with the record company after Usher sang Boyz II Men hit record “End of the Road”
Usher’s mother left her job as a medical technician to manage his career
Usher was introduced to the public on “Call Me a Mack”, a song he recorded for the soundtrack album to the 1993 drama-romance film Poetic Justice
During this time period, the young Usher first met Chilli of TLC, his label-mate whom he would later date
In 2001, Usher began dating TLC member Chilli Thomas, and their relationship lasted for three years
In 2003, Usher started working on the album that would become Confessions, which contained songs inspired by the personal lives of Usher and his collaborators
The songs about infidelity and pregnant mistresses were not inspired by Usher’s private life, but by Jermaine Dupri’s own personal challenges at the time
Dupri deliberately intended to create an air of mystery about Usher, and arouse fans’ curiosity about how much of the infidelity story was Usher’s own confession
The unintended result of this was to arouse Thomas’s suspicions about Usher
They broke up in December 2004
This was followed by a media frenzy surrounding the personal nature of Confessions
Many fans believed that the infidelity portrayed in “Confessions” was real, and the real reason for the split
In February 2004, in an interview on The Bert Show on the Atlanta radio channel Q100, Thomas was perceived as insinuating that Usher cheated on her
Usher defended: “… it just didn’t work out. But cheating is not what caused the relationship to collide and crash. That ain’t what broke it up”
This was backed up years later by Thomas, who said “People assumed that album was about us, but it was not”
In 2004, it was reported that Usher briefly dated British supermodel Naomi Campbell for a few months
Together the pair attended the MTV Europe Music Awards
It was reported that Campbell jumped out of a pop out cake to surprise him for his birthday
The following year, he was linked to model Eishia Brightwell for some time
They were seen together at different events including the Grammys, the Vanity Fair Oscar party and the NAACP Awards
In November 2005, Usher began dating stylist Tameka Foster, who worked as his personal stylist for several years
Their engagement was announced in February 2007
After the sudden cancellation of a planned July wedding in the Hamptons, the two were wed on August 3, 2007, in a civil ceremony in Atlanta
This was followed by a larger wedding ceremony on September 1, 2007, held at the Chateau Elan Winery & Resort outside Atlanta
Usher’s father, Usher Raymond III, died of a heart attack on January 21, 2008
For a short period of time shortly after the death of his father, Usher adopted a vegan diet
After several years, Usher dropped all egg and dairy products, embracing an entirely vegan diet for health reasons
Usher years later told reporters that he stopped his vegan diet saying that maintaining the lifestyle was expensive
Upon his marriage to Foster, Usher became a stepfather to Foster’s three sons from previous relationships, one born when she was a teenager and two from her first marriage to Atlanta clothier Ryan Glover
Usher and Foster also have two sons together: Usher “Cinco” Raymond V, born in November 2007, and Naviyd Ely Raymond, born in December 2008
In February 2009, two months after the birth of their second son, Foster suffered a cardiac arrest in São Paulo, Brazil
Then she was given general anesthesia prior to scheduled cosmetic surgery (reportedly liposuction), which was ultimately not performed
She was induced into a coma to aid her recovery and was transferred to a larger facility, the Hospital Sírio-Libanês
Usher canceled his performance at Clive Davis’s pre-Grammy Gala in order to fly to Brazil to be with Foster
After a week of recovery, Foster’s surgeon issued a statement saying that she was “doing very well”
Usher filed for divorce from Foster in June 2009 in Atlanta
The divorce was legally finalized in Fulton County Court on November 4, 2009
This preceded a highly publicized child custody dispute spanning three years
It ultimately culminated on August 24, 2012, with a judge awarding Usher primary custody of his two sons with Foster
In 2011, Forbes magazine placed Usher at number 32 on its Celebrity 100
The magazine reported his earnings after the OMG Tour to stand at $46 million
Ranking him at number 12 on “The World’s 25 Highest-Paid Musicians” list
Foster’s 11-year-old son Kile Glover, Usher’s former stepson, was declared brain dead on July 8, 2012, after being struck by a personal water craft on Lake Lanier the previous day
Glover died on July 21, 2012, after being removed from life support.[462] Just over a year later, on August 5, 2013, Usher’s eldest son, Usher V, was hospitalized in the ICU after he became stuck in a drain while swimming in a pool at Usher’s home
The next day, Foster filed a request for an emergency custody hearing in Fulton County Superior Court, seeking temporary primary custody and citing Usher V’s “near-death accident” as evidence of a lack of supervision of the children
At the hearing on August 9, 2013, the case was dismissed and Usher retained primary custody of their two sons
In September 2015, Usher quietly married his long-time girlfriend and manager Grace Miguel while vacationing in Cuba
There was speculation of the two being married when Miguel’s Instagram post showed a picture of a gold wedding band on Usher’s finger
He confirmed the marriage during an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show
On July 19, 2017, documents leaked online allege that Usher has been a carrier of the herpes virus since 2009 or 2010 and that he infected a partner with it in 2012
It alleges that Usher paid the woman’s doctor bills and settled a civil suit with her for $1.1 million
Amid the allegations, TMZ reported that another woman filed a $10 million lawsuit against Usher claiming that he exposed her to the herpes virus without her knowledge or consent, which is a crime in certain states
TMZ followed up this story with another alleging that she increased her lawsuit to $20 million after testing positive.
Three more claimants sued him on allegations of fraud, sexual battery, infliction of emotional distress and more
Alleging that he was positive for the herpes virus and did not tell them in advance
All three were represented by attorney Lisa Bloom
Bloom said on August 8, 2017, that one of her three clients had contracted genital herpes allegedly from him
One of the accusers, Quantasia Sharpton, said she had unprotected sex with him after a concert she attended
The other two accusers, one male and one female, preferred to remain anonymous plaintiffs
Sharpton admitted she tested negative and Bloom stated she did not know if the singer had the disease
On March 6, 2018, Usher and wife Grace Miguel informed Us Weekly of their separation in a statement
On December 28, 2018, Usher filed for divorce from Miguel in Georgia
In September 2020, it was confirmed that Usher was expecting his third child, with music executive Jenn Goicoechea
They reportedly started dating in October 2019
Their daughter was born on September 24, 2020
Usher and Goicoecha welcomed their second child together on September 29, 2021
Usher made his television acting debut on the American sitcom Moesha in 1997 playing Jeremy Davis, the love interest and classmate of Moesha, played by Brandy Norwood
He has acted in feature films, debuting in 1998’s The Faculty
In 2023, Usher and longtime friend L.A. Reid co-founded Mega, an independent record label in a partnership with Larry Jackson’s digital music distribution company, gamma