Actually… money wins.

Quick saga recap: Usher’s managed by his mom for years. Usher meets Tameka. Mom hates Tameka. Usher defends Tameka’s controversial reputation. Tameka gets pregnant. Mom gets booted. Tameka marries Usher. Usher’s new album sucks. Usher reconnects with Mom.

Usher now separated from Tameka?

That’s the word according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Given the rather tepid response his new album has received, Usher clearly wanted to go back to a winning formula – enter mom, exit wife.

It’s a sh*tty situation but I can’t say I can’t relate.

My mother has emotionally and superstitiously blackmailed me for years. If she wants me to do something she knows I don’t want to do, all she has to tell me is that it’ll be good luck if I do it. If I’m doing something she doesn’t want me to do, all she has to tell me is that it’ll be bad luck if I do it.

If she senses hesitation, she’ll remind me of all the times she was right. Times I was embarrassed, humiliated, brokenhearted. Works every time. Like just last night.

I arrived back at the hotel after dinner to find my father watching the baseball game on the couch and my mother ironing my clothes. She asked me what I’ll be wearing the night of the party. I’ve been hoarding this hot dress I bought at Intermix in LA in July. Pink and black stripes, super short, super tight.

She told me I looked low classy and “cheap cheap”, dirtier than the “whore girls that hang out at the Asian karaoke bars”.

Nice.

Instead she picked up an off white, gauzy number – very elegant and demure, below the knee and beautiful but not what I had initially pictured. I explained this to her.

She told me cryptically that it would be in my best interests “luck”-wise to go with the off white. Then she went back to ironing as a very pregnant DOT DOT DOT hung in the air.

And I tried, you know? I tried to be strong. I tried to brush off her schemes. I tried to fight her mind-f*ck. But inevitably, it never works. I won’t be able to wear “my” dress without the psychological weight of wondering what will happen. Will I trip? Will I get fired? Will I get hit by a bus?

Best to wear “her” dress. Her dress will be safe. It always is.

So I’m wearing her dress. Because my mother said I should.

And if you’re planning to suggest that I need therapy, my answer to you that no therapist can cure me of my mother. It’s not possible.

Attached – Usher and Tameka in happier times. Sort of.