Usher Says He Was “Born” To Be A Dad

The rest of us know Usher simply as Usher. Like Cher and Prince and Madonna, a performer so iconic he really just needs the one name and we’re all like “yeah!” We are ready to watch him do whatever it is he might want to do, perhaps especially when he is set to headline the Super Bowl halftime show this year. His identity is just... Usher. To the rest of us. But for the man himself, he feels as though he was “born to be a dad” to his four beloved kids. Here’s what else you need to know about Usher’s family.

Usher “Cinco” Raymond V was born in 2007.

In 2007, Usher welcomed his oldest son, Usher “Cinco” Raymond V, with his first wife Tameka Foster, who he was married to from 2007 to 2009.

In 2008, father and son appeared on the cover of Essence together, with Usher explaining how fatherhood had changed his perspective on responsibility. “You should never abandon that responsibility, which is to be there, reading with your child, being supportive of your child’s growth. That is communicating. That is making the choice to put your child before your own vanity,” he said at the time.

Now that Usher Cinco is in his teens, his dad says that he is doing his best to find his own identity. And that means giving up being called Usher. “I have one son, Cinco, who does not like to be called Usher, who tries to get away from it,” he told Tamron Hall last year.

Naviyd Ely was born in 2008.

Foster and Usher welcomed son Naviyd Ely in December 2008, and by July 2009 the couple had separated. The singer ended up being granted full custody of both his sons, and in 2016 announced that he would be taking a break from his career to focus on raising his sons so he could share more sweet moments like a balloon trip in Italy he described to People at the time. “I went on an air balloon trip with about 15 people and we were about 3,000 feet in the air,” he shared with the magazine in 2016. “Both my boys were up there with me ... The whole family was up there. It was cool to just have that little moment away.”

While Cinco is trying to carve out his own identity separately from his dad, Naviyd, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as a child, is apparently a big fan of watching all of Usher’s work. Especially if he’s able to give critiques. “He’s like, ‘You missed this thing. you didn’t do this thing.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah that’s the point. It’s not supposed to be the same every night,’” he told Tamron Hall in 2022.

Sovereign Bo was born in 2020.

Usher started dating Miami record executive Jennifer Goicoechea in 2019, and the two welcomed their first child together, daughter Sovereign Bo, in September 2020. Sovereign was born a full month before her due date, which changed her horoscope sign and, in her dad’s opinion, her personality. “She came out early,” he told Ellen DeGeneres in May 2021. “She was scheduled to be a Scorpio but decided she had a different plan. Libras, you know, they kinda have their minds made up what they wanna do.”

Fans got to see Sovereign’s sweet little personality in action when she made a cameo in Usher’s new music video of his latest single, “Ruin.” In the video, the 3-year-old is seen playing with her dad, having a tea party, and wearing a tiara. “Daddy’s Little Girl,” he captioned the video on TikTok.

As Usher’s only daughter, she even changed the way he dressed. “I’m loving being a girl dad,” he told Good Morning America in July 2021. “I’m even changing my colors; I’m wearing pink and cool stuff like that.”

Sire Castrello was born in 2021.

Usher and Goicoechea welcomed their youngest child, son Sire Castrello, just one year after his older sister Sovereign in September 2021. He shared the exciting news with a black and white photo of his baby boy on Instagram alongside the caption, “Hi my name is Sire Castrello Raymond … I am the newest addition to the Raymond crew. I was born Sept 29 2021 at 6:42pm weighing 7lbs 13oz. Hear me roar … A.K.A Ra Ra.”

As the youngest in the family, the proud dad told People in 2022, “Me and him have a really cool relationship. He’s different than any of my other kids. I’ve managed to have a little code going with him when I talk to him and how we speak to each other,” he went on to say that his little boy, “makes me mush ... My new little boy, he’s something special.”

Usher’s stepson Kile died at 11 years old.

In 2012, Usher and Foster suffered the loss of her son Kile Glover from a previous relationship in 2012. Kile suffered fatal head injuries when a jet ski crashed into him while he and a friend were being towed on an inner tube by a pontoon boat on Lake Lanier in Georgia.

The singer opened up to Oprah Winfrey at the time about being grief-stricken at the loss of his stepson. “I miss Kile,” Usher told Winfrey on her former series Next Chapter. “We cooked together, we laughed, we sang. He loved to sing and dance. He loved to tell jokes.”

Usher, who was a dad of two little boys at the time of the tragic accident, went on to tell Winfrey, “I was born to do what I’m doing as a dad. I realized that once I had a child. When I had them, that’s when they became a priority. It wasn’t because of this case.” In 2014, the man who was driving the jet ski was found guilty of homicide by vessel.

Usher is an involved dad, even if his kids want him to be “low-key.”

While Usher is the consummate professional and a world-class performer, he admitted to Us Weekly last February that he, like most parents, struggles with work/life balance. “I really want to be at every recital, [I] wanna be at every basketball game. I want to be at every step,” he admitted at the time.

However, his kids don’t necessarily feel the same way because their dad is so famous and all of the attention tends to go gravitate to Usher. “My kids — sometimes, they don’t want me to come,” Usher said on the Club Shay Shay podcast. “They don’t want me to be at their basketball game or their recital, or they wanna be very, very low-key, ‘cause they don’t want that energy ... And it’s hard, because I try my hardest to have that empathy, but I wanna be there.”

Between his Super Bowl Halftime performance, his new album Coming Home dropping on Feb. 9, an upcoming tour, and all of his kids’ events they may or may not want him to attend, Usher’s schedule is packed.