R ’n’ B singer Usher’s divorce from his wife is final, according to court documents.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Bensonetta Tipton Lane issued a final decree in the divorce case on Wednesday.
Usher, 31, whose real name is Usher Raymond IV, filed for divorce from Tameka Raymond on June 12. He said the couple had been separated since July of last year and claimed there was “no reasonable hope of reconciliation”’ and the marriage was “irretrievably broken.”
Tameka Raymond disputed Usher’s claim that the couple had been separated since July 2008. She said in court documents filed June 29 that she “had every reason to believe her marriage was intact” and that the two were “intimately together as husband and wife as recently as June 6.”
Usher’s lawyer, Ivory Brown, said on Friday she couldn’t comment on the case. BJ Bernstein, a lawyer for Tameka Raymond, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
The couple have two young sons, Usher Raymond V, who will turn 2 on Nov. 26, and Naviyd Ely Raymond, who will be 1 on Dec. 11. When he filed for divorce, Usher was seeking joint custody of the boys.
No custody arrangement was detailed in the divorce decree.
The couple married in August 2007 in a lavish ceremony. About 200 people attended their wedding at resort built in the style of a 16th-century-style French chateau outside Atlanta.
Fans of Britney Spears deserted the pop diva just three songs in to her first Australian concert after it became evident she was miming rather than singing, news reports said Saturday.
“People are paying for it and have come here so she should sing,” a fan who walked out of Friday’s sold-out show told television station Nine Network.
A Burswood Entertainment Complex spokesman denied there had been a mass walk-out.
“Early media reports that hundreds of fans left the concert early cannot be substantiated, and Burswood has received no complaints about the concert,” he said.
Spears is playing Perth before taking her circus-themed show to Melbourne and Sydney.
Spears’ management have not denied that the star is lip-synching to recordings on the Circus tour.
But there has been no official response to a call from New South Wales state Trading Minister Virginia Judge that those purchasing tickets should be told not to expect a live show.
“Sydneysiders would not tolerate a Mickey Mouse performance,” she said. “Let’s be clear, live means live. If you’re spending up to US$180, I think you deserve better than a film clip.”
On the other side of the world a different diva has been kicking up a stink of her own.
As Egypt geared for pop diva Beyonce Knowles’ first performance in North Africa, Islamic conservatives branded her show an “insolent sex party” that threatens the Muslim nation’s “social peace and stability.” On giant posters plastered across the Egyptian capital advertising the Friday evening concert, Beyonce sports a revealing, flame-covered outfit and grips a set of motorcycle handlebars extending from her hips — a sharp contrast to Cairo streets, where most women wear the traditional Muslim headscarves.
TV ads promoting the show, part of Beyonce’s “I Am ...” world tour, have run on Egyptian and Arab satellite stations. The tour, which also took Beyonce to the United Arab Emirates last month.
But in Egypt, Islamic lawmakers and their supporters have waged campaigns on social networking Web sites, accusing the government of encouraging debauchery and calling for the concert’s cancellation.
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