Teyana Taylor won't be sabotaged

Teyana Taylor and NBA star Iman Shumpert may have settled their divorce, but their legal battle is far from over. This week, Teyana filed court documents against Iman, alleging that he leaked sealed documents to the public after it became well-known that she left the divorce with $1 million in cars, multiple luxury properties worth $10 million, and full ownership of her businesses.

According to her paperwork, their divorce was finalized last July, not this month as media reports have stated. And Teyana is suggesting that the only reason the details of their divorce are surfacing now, is because Iman leaked the documents to make her look bad, as if she wiped him clean, in retaliation for photos of her and actor Aaron Pierre together at several events, and finally, their hard launch at the Oscars, which Lainey wrote about here. 

She is seeking for him to be held in contempt of court, ordered to pay a fine of $1000 and some media outlets have even reported that she requested he spend time in jail. But according to an Instagram live video from this week, she’s adamant she’s never sought jail time for her ex – despite the beef she currently has with him for how poorly he has managed himself throughout the process of their divorce, while she has extended him more grace than he deserved.

“I’m waiting for ya’ll to show me the proof where I said, ‘Put Iman in jail’. I never, ever, ever said ‘Put Iman in jail,’” she told viewers. 

“Before this divorce, during this divorce and after this divorce. I protected that man with all I had in me. ‘Not too much on my best friend,’” she said, implying she encouraged people to stay out of it and not be too hard on him. “I’ve done nothing but try to protect us.”

Teyana addressed the skepticism over why Iman would be the one to leak documents and what he might get out of her looking bad, saying:

“For people saying, ‘Oh, well, what would Iman get out of making you look bad?’ Some people are okay with looking bad just as long as you look worse.” 

She expressed her disappointment in his inability to stand up for her, despite her explicitly asking him to help her set the record straight, and her going to great lengths to ensure his name didn’t get dragged through the mud, much like hers is now, prior to clearing the air and taking legal action to slow down some of the online abuse.

“I’ve been nothing but solid to that man. And all I asked for was him to stand up for me. You see what’s happening, you see it’s not true. If I didn’t file that motion I’d have to continue dealing with this. I have three movies coming up. And a TV show. It’s always conveniently coming up when Iman has a new song or a new venture,” she said, suggesting that Iman is strategically timing the waves of media activity to be aligned with his own music releases, and so that the hoopla can overshadow Teyana’s projects.

The comment section of her video paints a very interesting picture. After scanning through people’s reactions for several minutes, a few things became clear. First, most women agree that Teyana is a very private person, so the fact that she felt compelled to speak on this is very telling. The second thing is that most women are in agreement with the sentiment of her live video, which highlights her overall disappointment with the lack of defence he has provided for her, despite the overwhelming grace and protection she has offered him. 

Many said they could relate, and that this situation is typical for Black women who find themselves in relationships with men they defend but won’t defend them in return, and men they try to be amicable with, while they only know rage and retaliation. Lastly, there were several men in the comments who are on Iman’s side, feeding into the idea that she did, in fact, take him for everything he had, which she also addressed in the video.

“The fact that you are okay with the world thinking that I took you for everything that you had and have the world thinking that I would try to get you locked up…What we’re not gonna do is act like I wasn’t Teyana Taylor before I got with Iman Shumpert. Iman Shumpert was not even in the NBA when I was Teyana Taylor.”

Then, she posed a final question to Iman:

“What if I wanna get my back blown out in peace?” 

With what she’s revealed about him in the past, providing examples of ways he displayed jealous and insecure behaviour, which I wrote about here, this situation is textbook. This is the exact behaviour we’ve seen with other toxic men. People like Darius Daulton, who publicly shamed the mother of his child, Keke Palmer, over an outfit she wore to Usher’s residency in Las Vegas, which I wrote about here. We saw it with Future, who not only cheated on Ciara, but criticized and shaded her for introducing their son to Russell Wilson, who ultimately became her husband. 

And most recently with perhaps the most controversial figure you can think of, who just this week shaded his ex-wife and mother of his children, calling her a “white woman”, as if she wasn’t white when he married and had four kids with her. Iman falls into the same category as men like this, who will say and do anything except take accountability. As one of the comments said:

One other thing that stood out to me and so many others is how, despite her lengthy video and the many things she said, Teyana never unfairly dragged Iman through the mud. In many ways, she is still protecting him. She didn’t criticize him as a man, nor as a parent. She simply addressed all of the things that have become public, and what drove her to file the legal papers she did this week and make it clear that she has no intention of putting the father of her children behind bars. This is a level of maturity and self-control that most people simply do not possess, particularly in a situation as personal as this. 

In Lainey’s piece about Teyana and Aaron’s hard launch, she quite accurately encapsulated the main reason for Iman being so disgruntled right now:

“On talent, on status, on sexiness, on buzz, these two are equals. Aaron is on the ascent, Teyana has long been the moment, one of the baddest bitches in the game.”

Is Iman on the ascent, though? With a stagnant NBA career that hasn’t seen him on the court of an NBA game since the 2020-21 season and a forgettable music and acting career that pales in comparison to Teyana’s, is he on the ascent? He knows that Teyana has finally met her match – and it wasn’t him. Couple that with his pre-existing envy over her success and you have the perfect recipe for what I call a bitter baby daddy. 

Iman knows exactly what he lost. He knows exactly what he fumbled. And he’s now joining the ranks of Hollywood’s toxic men who have to sit and wallow in the fact that one of the greatest things they ever had in life is on her way to more success and more opportunity. And to top it all off, she’s laid up with a handsome man who is doing what he was incapable of. It’s gotta hurt. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get any uglier than it already is.