Usher had a great weekend. On Sunday, the 45-year-old American singer experienced one of the highlights of his career: his performance at halftime of the Super Bowl in front of 70,000 spectators at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and more than 100 million spectators watching him in each. Additionally, he released his first album in his six-year career on Friday, just 48 hours earlier. But there was more. As it became known on Monday afternoon, Usher had married his partner of about five years, music manager Jennifer Goicoechea, that same weekend.
Already on Sunday, People magazine exclusively announced that the couple had apparently applied for a marriage license on Thursday, which is the legal step towards getting married. First you have to request the document, a process that can be done online, but then you have to go to the Clark County Clerk's Office (the jurisdiction that includes Las Vegas) to pick it up; From then on, you have one year to get married. But the artist didn't wait that long. The same Sunday he performed at the Super Bowl, he and Goicoechea were married. At the end of the game in which the Kansas City Chiefs were declared winners against the San Francisco 49ers, Usher was seen wearing a gold wedding ring on his left hand. The singer's representatives declined to confirm the information, but several media outlets, including People and Page Six, did.
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At the post-Super Bowl party the couple attended, organized by the musician at the city's exclusive Cathédrale restaurant, both were dressed head-to-toe in white. At some point, a music producer friend called out: “Congratulations to the newlyweds!” Shortly afterwards, the artist took the microphone and thanked everyone present. “It was a great night, man. I am very happy. That's just the beginning. It's the victory lap to celebrate 100 sold-out concerts in Las Vegas. And now we’re going on tour!”
The couple started dating around 2019. Goicoechea, 40 years old and originally from Miami, Florida, is the daughter of an Italian mother and a Puerto Rican father. She studied music at Full Sail University in Florida and has been working as a music manager for years, since 2016 at Epic Records, where she is Vice President for R&B and Urban Music. The world of entertainment runs in the family, as her mother, Barbara Goicoechea, has been the operations manager of a major Miami event production company, ACT Producciones, since 1988. In fact, this is how he got his first small jobs, working as an assistant to the singer Ciara in his youth.
The couple has two children, a girl named Sovereign Bo, born in September 2020, and a boy, Sire Castrello, in November 2021. This is the third marriage for Usher and, as far as is known, the first for Goicoechea. In his youth, Usher dated singer Chilli, part of the girl band TLC, and dated models like Naomi Campbell. Between 2007 and 2009, he was married to his stylist Tameka Foster and they had two children, Usher V, called Cinco; and Naviyd, who are 16 and 15 years old, respectively. She had three children from a previous relationship who became part of the family and to whom he was very close. The youngest of the three, Kile, died in 2012 aged just 11 in an accident on a lake after being hit by a jet ski. After their divorce, Usher dated his then-agent Grace Miguel in 2009 and they married in Cuba in 2015. They separated in March 2018 and divorced in December of the same year. They had no children together.
In an interview with People last November, the artist spoke about his relationship with his current partner. “I have an incredible partner, my support system,” he said. “We have an incredible dynamic where I can continue to be passionate about what I do and I have an incredible partner with whom I can get through difficult times, as a young man dealing with children and how to deal with them communicated,” he explained. “I am very lucky and very lucky to have not only a partner but also an incredible friend. She's my best friend, I love her.” That same weekend, he actually talked about possible marriage: “Of course we have a shared lifelong commitment to our children. “It wouldn’t be strange to get married.”