Usher's confession on love, sex, music and the real reason he and Chilli split

Ebony, June, 2004 by Kevin Chappell

THE query was simple, but the silence was deafening. Who would have thought that a straightforward question like: "What did you like most about Chilli?" would garner anything but a straightforward answer from the always outspoken Usher Raymond IV?

After all, with his historic new CD Confessions selling a mind-boggling million copies the first week--breaking the R&B sales record that has stood for more than two decades and earning him the right to be called the "King of Urban Soul"--and with everything going his way, you wouldn't expect him to be at a loss for words.

So on this day, as he sat in the kitchen of his suburban Atlanta estate on the heels of the claim s, blames and accusations that followed his bitter breakup with Rozonda (Chilli) Thomas of the group TLC, why was there palpable silence to a question that seemed to have such an obvious answer? For more than two years, Usher and Chilli were there--the quintessential celebrity couple--in an extremely intense (and extremely public) relationship for the entire world to see. He affectionately used to call her "Lil' Big Mama," and her name for him was "Papa Bear." Eight years his senior, she was always there to tuck in his shirt, pull up his sagging jeans. He was always be there for her, to open her door, true R&B star could. She was his biggest fan. He was her biggest supporter, even during and especially when her fellow group member Lisa (Left Eye) Lopes died in a car crash in 2002.

True, the headline-blaring breakup of a major love affair can give pause to even international sex symbols--but for the good part of one minute? Had Usher been up in the Atlanta clubs screaming "Yeah" (the name of his No. I single) so much since the breakup that he hadn't even had time to think about Chilli? Or had the 25-year-old heartthrob not been able to stop thinking about her--thinking about how much he loved her, how much she loved him, how much he let her down, how much, he says, she let him down?

Then, without warning, his lips part slightly as he lights a Cuban cigar and sheds light on his most intimate thoughts regarding his first true love. "Some people are meant to be in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime," Usher says slowly and methodically as he proceeds to wax philosophical. "Not to make negative of my relationship, because when I was in it, there was a lot of love and we had a lot of fun. But dealing with her personality and all of the 'things she had going on in her life was hard. She wanted things and was moving in a direction, and I wanted things and was moving in a different direction, and we were unable to both compromise and meet each other halfway. With love, you have to be able to meet your partner halfway. Overall, we were just not compatible to be in a relationship with each other at that time in our lives."

With his mother in the other room and his younger brother James in the guest house out back, Usher chooses this time and this place to come clean. He admits that he cheated on her. He says he told her so. "She asked me [if I had cheated on her] in a way and in a time in my life where I felt like I was just trying to cleanse myself," he says. "I guess God put an obstacle in front of me to see how I would react to it. So I told her the truth. Most men wouldn't do it. Most women wouldn't do it. I'm a man. I can own up to what I did. I ain't trying to hide from it. I ain't perfect. After I told her, I couldn't have been happier or more devastated."

Usher also says that Chilli wasn't perfect, and when asked whether he has doubts about her faithfulness, he said, "Of course, I do. I never expressed them to her."

There is little chance of reconciliation, Usher says. The two haven't spoken to each other since the breakup, except for one emotional face-to-face encounter that Usher initiated after Chilli reportedly told one radio station DJ that she "will never be with him again. There is no Usher and Chilli, and it will never be Usher and Chilli ever again ... He portrays himself to be, you know, this honest and great guy, and he really wasn't."

But Usher insists that infidelity wasn't the reason they broke up. In fact, "We had broken up even before I chose to have that conversation [about cheating] with her. I think that's what people don't know. It wasn't something that I did in the middle of a relationship, or was caught cheating or something. As a man, I felt like if this is going to be real then let it be real."

Marriage was one of the biggest sticking points, he says. "She wanted to get married. I did not want to be married," he says. "I wanted it to be right, so that there was nothing that would ever tear us apart. I wanted to make sure that we had the stability to make it through a relationship, not just fight for it. You know how many miserable couples are together right now? I don't want to be put in a situation like that."

What is his response to Chilli's take on the reason they broke up? Again, Usher waxes: "Hate and love are distant cousins," he says. "Sometimes a woman can be hurt and speak out of turn and say things that she can later regret. We had a conversation afterwards, and she apologized for it, and I'm cool with it. I didn't really take it too personal. I'm not sad. I'm smiling. But I'm still open wide. I'm not going to lie. I was in love with this woman. She was not someone I was just playing with. I'm in a place now where I'm cool."