This week in deliciously petty news, Usher has cast Keke Palmer to star in his latest music video over a month after stirring up relationship drama. The R&B icon posted a teaser for his new song 'Boyfriend' earlier this week featuring Keke in the cinematic-looking visuals, which officially drop tomorrow. To top it off, the audio snippet includes him singing, 'Somebody said that your boyfriend's looking for me.' Whew.
The collaboration is a chef's kiss-worthy wink at the online frenzy that Usher, Palmer, and most importantly her boyfriend, Darius Jackson, stirred up in early July. To recap: Usher serenaded and danced with Palmer at his Vegas concert, and Jackson replied with a tweet shaming her for wearing a sheer black dress. ('It’s the outfit tho ... you a mum,' he wrote. Jackson and Palmer welcomed their first child together in February.) The internet swiftly came to Palmer's defence, spurring Jackson to double down on his comments. ('We live in a generation where a man of the family doesn’t want the wife & mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others & he gets told how much of a hater he is,' he wrote in another post, cueing eyerolls everywhere.) That only led the public to roast him even harder.
Since then, Palmer hasn't publicly addressed her and Jackson's current relationship status, but her freestyle at Broccoli City seemed to hint that she was single. But, ever the business woman, she made light of the scandal with some tongue-in-cheek merch saying 'I'm a motha.' Her latest partnership with Usher only further proves that she remains unbothered by Jackson's sexist comments. If anything, she's having a little fun with it—and so are we.
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Erica Gonzales is the Deputy Editor, Culture at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more. She was previously an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. There is a 75 percent chance she’s listening to Lorde right now.
