Usher is worth a reported $180 million. (Erika Goldring/Getty Images)
A new report has uncovered details about a $1.1 million payout Usher gave a stylist after he allegedly knowingly infected her with herpes.
In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and settled in 2012, Usher learned he had the virus in 2009 or 2010, according to Radar Online. Doctors labeled the singer as an “asymptomatic carrier” after he experienced no other symptoms aside from a “greenish discharge” that once came from his penis, according to court papers. (According to the CDC, a smelly discharge can be a symptom of genital herpes.)
Documents also revealed that the singer learned about his infection after he began dating the woman, whose identity has been withheld by Radar Online, and Usher “consciously and purposefully withheld that information from her and continued to have unprotected sex with her.”
When Usher’s partner confronted him about the infection, which California law states it is illegal to knowingly and recklessly transmit, he was “very apologetic” and said “he would take care of things,” which the documents show included paying $2,754 in medical bills for the woman, according to the New York Daily News.
Usher later called the woman with his doctor, who told her that Usher was diagnosed with the virus, Radar Online reported. The stylist tested positive for genital herpes two or three days after speaking with Usher’s doctor, which left her “devastated.”
“She feels that her health and body have been ruined,” according to the lawsuit, and she “has suffered severe emotional distress and has been extremely depressed … knowing there is no cure.”
Usher has not issued a public comment on the matter.
