Keke Palmer and Usher have officially teamed up for the singer-songwriter’s latest music video following last month’s outfit-shaming controversy.
In July, Palmer’s boyfriend, Darius Jackson, with whom she welcomed her son Leodis “Leo” Andrellton in February, publicly shamed her for wearing a sheer outfit to Usher’s Las Vegas residency.
“It’s the outfit tho [sic]... you a mom,” Jackson tweeted in response to a viral video of Usher serenading Palmer during his concert.
On Tuesday (15 August), Usher teased the music video for his new single, “Boyfriend”, on X (formerly Twitter), ahead of its Wednesday release.
The clip shows the Nope star, 29, looking at her mirrored reflection as the 44-year-old Grammy-winning artist sings: “Somebody said that your boyfriend’s looking for me.”
After facing initial backlash for his tweet, Darius doubled down on his opinion, writing: “We live in a generation where the man of the family doesn’t want the wife and mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others and he gets told how much of a hater he is.
“This is my family and my representation. I have standards and morals to what I believe. I rest my case.”
Palmer later broke her silence after Jackson was branded “insecure” for his comments, telling The Cut about her newfound confidence since giving birth.
“After having my baby, I’ve just gotten so much more powerful,” she began. “I’ll be honest, I think before I even had the baby, I was really actually quite self-conscious. In a way that you would expect, considering the kind of work that I do as a public figure – always trying to be on point with my body and always trying to make sure I’m taking care of this and that. There’s a lot of physical attention.”
She noted that, after becoming a mother, her body has “got so much bigger and [she] started getting fluff in areas [she] never had before”.
“It’s like, that’s not something to hide, that’s something to embrace,” Palmer continued. “We’re going to lean into this new body. That is the whole aura of what’s happening with me in this big boss era as I come into my 30s and I have my baby boy. I’m just continuing to spread my wings as a young woman.”
