Usher’s first VOGUE cover has become one of the most memorable moments of his career—but for all of the wrong reasons.
The baffling image from the Jan. 17. publication includes the description: “For Vogue’s Winter 2024 Digital issue, Usher discusses his 30-year career, his lifelong love of fashion, and what fans can expect at halftime next month.”
However, the pop star is in the background — not the foreground — standing behind a youth football team. Additionally, Usher is accompanied by model Carolyn Murphy, a white woman who literally has no business sharing the cover with him. Murphy also appears in several images with Usher inside the magazine.
Ahead of Usher’s Super Bowl performance — what’s sure to be the most televised moment of his career — this would have been the perfect opportunity for VOGUE to showcase him front and center. The magazine fumbled (pun intended) big with this one but also has a disturbing history of pairing Black male celebs with white women for its covers.
In 2008, LeBron James was the first Black man to be featured on the cover. However, that moment was soured as supermodel Gisele Bündchen appeared alongside him, causing many to compare the cover to King Kong, but with racist undertones. Kanye West appeared on the cover of VOGUE in 2014 with then-wife Kim Kardashian. In December 2020, Harry Styles donned a dress and became the first male to grace the cover of the magazine solo.
Usher with the football team could have been cute. Even pairing him with a Black supermodel would have been a better fit than Murphy.
VOGUE’s repeated history of this shows what the magazine thinks of Black men—and folks are rightfully livid about it.