Usher was seen kicking a fan off stage after she failed to respond positively to his “awkward” dancing.
A viral video from his Nashville concert showed the female audience member looking unimpressed as Usher attempted to dance seductively around her.
Having been chosen from the crowd in the show’s VIP section, fan Gabrielle Cheyenne, a nurse, was brought to an onstage prop bed where a shirtless Usher, 47, gyrated his hips suggestively as he serenaded her with his 2004 hit, Can U Handle It?
As Gabrielle, 24, sat stiffly on the “bed”, Usher eventually noticed her lack of enthusiasm and told the crowd, “I don’t think she wanna be on the stage”.
As he walked off, Usher waved Gabrielle away – wordlessly signalling her to leave as the sound of booing rose from other concertgoers.
Some fans were disappointed Gabrielle had not played along with the steamy performance, which has been a mainstay of Usher’s The R&B Tour: Raymond & Brown, co-headlined with fellow singer Chris Brown.
“Now, why did she sign up to be on stage?” wrote one. “If she didn’t wanna be there you knew what it means to go on stage with Usher and Chris Brown come on now.”
Others had plenty of sympathy.
“OMG that was awkward. Poor girl,” another fan wrote.
For her part, Gabrielle was quick to take to social media to explain how she came to be on stage, revealing she had purchased general-admission tickets for herself and her mother, but Usher’s “team” had led her to the VIP area.
“Their team approached us and moved us to VIP before the show even started,” Gabrielle recalled.
She added she was shocked by the reaction of some of her fellow fans.
“Ya’ll don’t know me in real life!” Gabrielle wrote. “I’m quiet and keep to myself but don’t think that ya’ll are gonna bully me about an experience that ya’ll didn’t get.”
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Author: Al Dente
Photo: Georges Biard, derivative work Lämpel