Usher reacts to criticism for stage moments with Alicia Keys and Nicki Minaj.
Usher recently headlined the NFL Super Bowl Halftime show, but the R&B star was trending for hugging Alicia Keys from behind in a close moment. The ‘Yeah’ hitmaker received criticism for the moment on social media, and now finally responds to all the drama.
“In no way should anything done there be viewed as bad or perverted or anything like that,” he states. “It was literally about having fun because of a song that me and Alicia made many years ago. And we celebrated because of the legacy of it. And no disrespect to anybody or anything like that.”
He then revealed having a laugh about it with Alicia Keys’ producer husband Swizz Beatz: “Absolutely we laughed about it. It’s crazy how people [focused on] that. It’s all about how you present things, man. But it’s all love.”
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Usher also addressed the 2014 MTV VMAs performance with Nicki Minaj, which went viral following the Super Bowl. “That was Jamaican culture,” he said. “You gotta go to Jamaica, you know what I’m saying? That was just a moment that was fun. And by the way, that was me playing my bass so I would have probably bumped my shoulder or my hand, but I had my bass in my hand so I just bopped off her body a little bit. Go back and look at the video and you’ll understand ’cause I did it there for the first time. That was a little bit of Jamaican culture.”
usher was so annoying for this 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/Sy9Nc6QgD8
— savvy 🎀 (@onikarchives) February 11, 2024
