Tameka Foster is finding herself in quite a vulnerable position these days. In the midst of an ugly child custody battle, Usher and Tameka seem to be at a standstill. The courtroom seems to be the only hope as various stories of “he said, she said” play out on a regular basis. However, the situation becomes even more dire as Tameka is in fear of being homeless.

A report by TMZ notes that Tameka at any moment could be out of a home in less than 60 days if Usher wanted to do so. The home in question is located in Georgia and legally belongs to Usher.

Given how ugly the divorce went and the fact that she is the mother of five sons, Tameka should have more of a financial plan aside from sticking it to Usher (Hint: Leaning from Pilar’s situation). The media reports highlight her demands that Usher subsidize her extravagant lifestyle. Surely, it’s about more than money here….Let’s hope so, or humanity is over.

While Tameka is sure to be awarded something, it may or may not be what she was expecting. Usher is now seeking full custody of his two sons, possibly significantly cutting into any awarded settlement if he wins.

It’s not our forte to expound on celebrities and their personal lives, but Tameka’s financial situation certainly is.

Tameka first and foremost is a mother of five children. She was the wife of Usher Raymond for nearly two years.  While it will be left up to the courts to decide what she’s legally entitled to, she has been a primary custodian for her children before, during, and after her recent separation from Usher. She’s been down this road of divorce before with the father of her first three children. Surely she would have learned to

• Secure assets
• Have investments
• Erase the vulnerability that comes with divorce proceedings

Guess not.

Why No One Will Win

Both parties need to mature a bit as this sets a horrible example for their children.

Even at the expense of downsizing her lifestyle, Tameka should have realized that the basics for survival for herself and her children are food, shelter, clothing, and love. In hardly wealthy families, there’s an endless void that money never fills. They worship money for the faux status and fake friends that it brings (Ask Terrell Owens how that pays off). Whatever money she possessed should have went towards investments and improving her own personal brand. Feeling entitled to a large cut of Usher’s wealth because she’s an ex won’t cut it.

Always, always, always have a safety net regardless of how good you have it in the moment with or without someone in your life!

Usher should equally realize that sticking it to his ex-wife will be no win for him either. After all, she is the mother and caretaker of his children. Breakups aren’t always pretty, but some peace must be kept if there’s children involved. Does anyone care anymore about what they’re teaching their children anymore?

If the civil war between them continues, a damaging mindset could be created that the children carry with them for the rest of their lives. They could inherit the mindset that plagues many minority households today. “Relationships are too vulnerable, as I can see how it screwed my mother or father over.” “Women are golddiggers or men don’t take personal responsibility for anything.” “I’ll never commit as I can’t be at risk of losing assets.” Now generations are being built off of this fragmented mentality because people have steered away from the basics of life that matter the most, and they all chase the one thing that’s destroying lives all around them: money.

Financial courses are severely needed in this country but need to be equally paired with psychology courses as money and psychology are tied together. As Tameka and Usher demonstrate, this has just as much to do with their life’s baggage as it does the money.

Money doesn’t fix insecurities, which is why the divorce and break-up rates are so high in the celebrity world. There are families all over planet that in tact, content, and earning less than $10,000 a year. Maximizing your financial gain is always critical but only at the cost of keeping your dignity and sanity.

Depending on which facts you look at, the past two years could be considered rough for musician Wyclef. During the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Wyclef stepped up to the plate for his native homeland and requested $5 contributions. Those contributions added up to an impressive multi-million dollar sum. Things were looking bright for Wyclef’s charitable organization Yele and Haiti both…that is, until the media began combing through financial books, finding horrendous inconsistencies that contrasted the pledged allegiance to come to Haiti’s rescue at whatever cost [See our earlier Wyclef article]. New reports have come forth to reveal that less than one-third of the charitable proceeds actually went to Haitian causes. What a shame!

A snippet of the Yahoo News article follows below:

According to the exclusive report, Jean’s charity, Yele Haiti, doled out millions in questionable contracts — in fact, $1 million was paid to a Florida firm that doesn’t seem to exist.

The Post also reported that a company called P&A Construction — which is run by Warnel Pierre, Jean’s brother-in-law — received $353,983 from the group.

On the other side of it all, if you look in depth at Yele’s spending, Wyclef has reaped lucrative financial rewards over these past two years: a little money to a mistress; a few big stacks to contracted companies that were discovered to be actually Wycleff’s own businesses. It’s a true testament that greed can bring out the ugliest behaviors in man.

Why We’re Disgusted with Wyclef Jean

This action showcases some of the ugliest characteristics in a Grade F model: greed, deception, moral ineptitude, and entitlement. Yele is not the first and will not be the last charitable organization to poorly delegate or outright pocket donations intended for pressing causes. We’ve expressed it before, but we’re utterly disappointed in Wyclef. After the devastating earthquake, he won over the trust of millions of donors with his passionate “dispair”, so-called vested interest, and boastful Haitian identity. At some point, he thought his own actions merited a much bigger cut of the proceeds than the affected Haitians going hungry, thirsty, and roofless.

We couldn’t be happier that Wyclef Jean was caught red-handed. This behavior needs to be exposed if we’re ever going to weed out the bad guys in the charitable space. The sad reality is that a decent amount of people start charities and foundations for personal financial gains. Many wealthy elite have excelled at burying wealth into these non-profit entities. Other hardly wealthy attempt to create the same organizations with the intention to silently attain more wealth. Both, when done with the intention to not address the causes promoted, are criminal. We hope this has deterred the future Yele organizations of the world and given Wyclef the reality check that his Haitian identity doesn’t leave him absent of personal accountability.

We’re prone to give Wyclef the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t intentionally plan to siphon the majority of the funds into his pocket when he initially asked for the donations. However, as the millions came pouring in, the greedy thoughts began materializing. “I could save on paying contractors if I’d just give the money back to my companies and my employees.” Or “I’m doing so much good for my country. There’s nothing wrong with rewarding myself for my work.” Who knows how it went down, but the results do not paint a pretty picture for however it really went down. While Wyclef may have made off with 66% of Yele’s donations, he has additionally grossed 100% of digust from people around the world. Congrats, Wyclef!

A big congrats is in order to Tyler Perry as he earned the title of being the highest paid man in entertainment by Forbes! From May 2010 to May 2011, he earned $130 million. His success is well warranted because he handles his business in a wealthy-elite fashion by doing the following:

Retaining ownership: Selling your soul (or ownership) is so rampant within the entertainment industry. Mostly big production companies sit at the top, dominating their territory and bullying the small players. Not only did Tyler Perry decide to swim with the big fish, he blindsided them by focusing on a niche that the other companies deemed unprofitable. Now he’s truly a force to be reckoned with.

Building His Brand: There’s so many points in his career where Tyler could have assumed that he had “made it” and just lived the high lifestyle. When he was just doing his Madea plays, he could have gotten overly content with his income and stuck with the same revenue model until it waned. However, Tyler set his sights bigger and bigger. After signing a movie deal with Lion Entertainment, he could have created attention-grabbing antics, proving how wealthy he was. After buying his own island, he could have went on and on about how he’s arrived to the world. Yet, what does Tyler do? He continues to invest money into his brand and into the brightest minority actors and actresses.

Sticking with His Values: So many dynamics change once an individual has had a taste of money and fame. If we had a nickel for everytime a hardly-wealthy celeb started feeling themselves and spent their way into the poorhouse, we’d have millions of dollars. With the constant pressure to change his artistic focus into other people’s ideals, Tyler has remained bullishly in his niche.

Pressure of Being a Wealthy Minority

When a minority attains wealth, they usually cannot act in the same manner as their white counterparts. There’s infinite amounts of pressure of them. They feel the need to “represent” and perpetuate the perceived wealthy lifestyle to the point that it compromises their true wealth. There’s the critics who feel that they should shift their mindset and career focus. There’s the family and friends who are financially dependent. Then there’s the competition who is trying to come for your title and wealth, since you’re an easy target. So, we applaud the fact that not only is Tyler Perry kicking butt and taking names, he’s gracefully doing so and not having embarrassing articles written about his antics posted on blogs around the web. Continue doing us proud, Tyler!!!

*Image courtesy of Celebrity Gossip

A little bit of old with a little bit of new is featured in this year’s top earning hip hop artists. We weren’t surprised at all to see Jay Z and Diddy top the list, as these are the two who have invested heavily in a brand for themselves and diversified investments. The list revealed a few shockers for us as well. Why has Wiz Khalifa earned so much money?!  Pitbull making the list is a refresher. We were also surprised to see 50 Cent further down on the list. Could that be a sign that 50’s mogul empire isn’t as solid?

Check out the Forbes list and article below:

Forbes has unveiled the annual list of Hip-Hop’s top 20 earners and as usual, Jay-Z has landed at #1. The rap icon has outperformed all other contenders including Diddy, Eminem and even Kanye West…

Interestingly, Nicki Minaj was the only woman to make the list, placing at #15 with earnings of $6.5 million.
Look below for the list of Hip-Hop’s top 20 earners:

1. Jay-Z – $37 M

2. Diddy – $35 M

3. Kanye West – $16 M

4. Lil Wayne/Birdman – $15 M

6. Eminem/Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg – $14 M

9. Akon – $13 M

10. Ludacris – $12 M

11. Wiz Khalifa/Drake – $11 M

13. Pharrell – $10 M

14. Timbaland – $7 M

15. Swizz Beatz/Nicki Minaj – $6.5 M

17. Rick Ross/50 Cent/Pitbull – $6 M

20. T-Pain/B.o.B – $5 M

Rapper Soulja Boy has recently fallen behind on his taxes to the tune of $26,000. The state of California filed a lien on March 24, 2011, according to Radar Online. It may not come as a surprise to anyone other than Soulja Boy himself. Rather than make sure his finances are in order, he’d rather produce video after video and PR lie after PR lie (see Soulja Boy’s lie about purchasing a G5 Jet for birthday on TMZ. With videos like these and a prior foreclosure on a Georgia home, we predict that Soulja Boy’s woes are in their infant phase.

Why Soulja Boy is truly poor despite having money

Those who are truly doing well financially make little noise about their lifestyle. Steve Jobs, a well known billionaire and mogul, has never been seen parading around in designer jeans, bling, and stacks of cash. His priorities lie in his legacy: building extraordinary products, businesses, and changing the world. For people like Steve Jobs, his wealth is an after-thought. It’s not his focus. This is typically the pattern of self-made wealthy elite.

This is exactly where these urban artists and hardly-wealthy go terribly wrong. Some of them possess extraordinary talent. Some of them possess no talent at all. However, their priorities are mixed up big time. Focus on building a legacy with everything you’ve got, and you’ll find that wealth will come.

Remember, your tombstone will not have your net worth or your assets imprinted on it. What legacy do you want to leave on this earth?

If the Wesley Snipes jail package isn’t enough to scare celebrities into paying their taxes, we don’t know what will. There are a number of celebrities that reportedly owe a sizable amount to the IRS. We’d clear that debt up if we were in their shoes.

Here’s snippet of some of the offenders, some more recent than others, courtesy of Back Taxes Help:

• Method Man: Faced federal charges in October for $32,799 in personal income and state income tax. He pled guilty and ended up paying over $106,000 in back taxes, penalties, and interest as a result.
• Swizz Beats (Alicia Key’s baby daddy): Owes over $2.2 million in back taxes.  He also recently had a $652,727 tax lien issued for unpaid federal taxes from 2008. Alicia, it’s a little to late to ask, but are you sure this guy is a keeper?
• Fat Joe: He owes $71,000 in Florida and his estimated $2 million FL estate is for sale.  He additionally owes $139,000 from previous liens in the state of New Jersey. You’d better “lean back” on your spending, Fat Joe, and “make it rain” on your back taxes.
• Macy Gray: Owes an estimated $50,000 in back taxes in the state of California.
• Mekhi Phifer: Had a lien served on April 26 with the Los Angeles County of Deeds. He currently owes the State of California $108,000. Time to hustle and get more roles, Mekhi.

*Image courtesy of Jeffrey Hamilton.

Prepare for Bankruptcy

We came across this video with statistics on the amount of athletes that hit bankruptcy after retirement, and the number isn’t pretty at all. Given the fact that three out of four athletes and entertainers are unlikely to maintain their wealth for a lifetime, the time to wisen up is now.

Hence, we share with you a few things to keep in mind:

1. Assume Then Prepare for the Worst: It’s so easy to think that you can never deplete your bank account of six to nine digits. However, 78 percent of the NFL along with 60 percent of the NBA retirees have proven that you can do so. Therefore, you’re better off facing reality and preventing the problem rather than ignoring it. If you didn’t come from a money savvy family and do not associate yourself with wealthy friends and family, then assume you are a likely target for bankruptcy.
2. Keep Your Spending to a Percentage: Just because your salary for the year may reach $15 million, it does not mean that you should go out and attempt to spend the entire salary. It’s guaranteed that you will not be making $15 million thirty years from now. Seek to spend less than half of your yearly income. By dedicating at least 33-50% of your income to retirement, you’re insuring that you probably will not die broke.
3. Keep Your Giving to a Percentage: This was one of the discussions in the video. Athletes and entertainers are notorious for giving generously to friends and family. They enjoy traveling with an entourage, entertaining, and buying the world for those around them. They can even make the mistake of investing in their friend’s crappy business idea with poor business acumen. A) You should never throw money at a wall. Thoroughly research your friend’s reason for needing the money, ensuring that it statistically promises the money you’re loaning plus interest. B) Vow to tie up a certain percentage of investments with your money at one time. Perhaps you’d like to donate a certain percentage of your salary to family, charity, friends, etc. After that amount is used up, refuse to give out additional donations (unless there’s a tax exemption from the donation). If necessary, opt to donate your time/ expertise instead of money once you’ve reached your quota.
4. Automate Your Savings: Depending on your needs, pair up with a financial advisor to set a budget. Have a portion of your funds automatically deposited into retirement/ savings/ investing accounts. Saving does not have to be a burden. Seek to make it as simple as possible.
5. Realize the Duration of Your Earning Potential: The average NFL player only lasts for three years. The average NBA player lasts for seven years. The average entertainer may last for an average of two years more or less depending on the genre and audience. Therefore, an artist’s big paycheck off their hit single may in fact be the first and only one that they ever receive. Attempt to create multiple revenues of income (i.e. public speaking gigs, fashion line, real estate, restaurant, etc.) so that you are not at the mercy of your short-lived career.

Celebrities and sports players make money off their brand. Their careers in the limelight have a short lifespan, and their biggest paychecks will probably come within that timeframe. Yet, artists and sports players seem to be messing up their earning potential left and right by participating in reckless behavior. It’s only three months into the new year, and some individuals seem to be staring into the face of disaster. The question becomes, are they getting exposed more due to social media, or are they getting more reckless?

It’s a hard lesson to learn, but these celebrities are learning it. They learn when the media tears the apart, when the endorsements stop, when their checks diminish, and when the demand disappears. They work within a highly competitive arena, and the final nail in the coffin becomes when a replacement comes out of nowhere and takes them off their throne.

So which celebrities seem to be getting a visit from Karma as of lately? Check it out:

Allen Iverson

We’re not sure what is going on with this man, but it seems that he has hit the bottom. While he’s always been rumored to be a cheater, party-goer, alcoholic, difficult, and a trouble maker, all was forgiven due to his skills on the court. Well, that no longer seems to be cutting it either. The final straw was when Iverson requested time off from playing so that he could spend time with his chronically ill daughter. Later, pictures sprung up of Iverson using his idle time to hang out in clubs with women and not with his sick daughter. One of Iverson’s daughters even clarified on Twitter that her sister was doing just fine. Almost instantaneously, his wife openly announced that she was filing for a divorce. And then, the Philadelphia 76ers released him from his contract for the year.

This doesn’t seem to be sudden behavior for Iverson. Comments are coming out, stating that Iverson is in desperate need of help and has been for some time now. For a man who is only 34 years old, he looks very troubled. He’s got so much life left that it is understandable to be concerned about where his actions will take him from here. Perhaps all this attention will help Iverson realize the inevitable: get help. He needed this wake-up call. Now the ball is in his court.

Lil Wayne

Lil Wayne is serving a one year sentence for possession of a .40 caliber semi-automatic gun on his tour bus a couple of years ago. His fanbase is supportive, and going to jail seems to give rappers more notoriety than anything else. However, the artist’s earning potential will undoubtedly be less than what it could have been if he was free. Furthermore, we’re disappointed that Lil Wayne and other artists seem to care little about their freedom. Families are broken up. Your record is tarnished. Your brand shrinks.

It doesn’t matter how talented people believe Lil Wayne to be. The fact of the matter is that he will only have a moment in the revolving spotlight. Rap music has turned into a pop industry, and within a few years there will be a new rapper on top. By doing something so careless, he’s taken a year away from his career. An artist of his caliber did not need to carry a weapon for protection. He’d better wake up, or he too will find himself with no more “money to blow”.

Chris Brown

While Chris Brown’s domestic abuse incident did happen over a year ago, it has done a number on his career. Everyone seems to understand this except Chris himself. He has apologized, given interviews, and faced probation due to the incident. However, his brand has been tarnished to the point of noticeable damage to his career. So on March 10, Chris Brown sent out a message to his fans pleading for their help because he’s done all he can do:

Translated:

“I ain’t never really did this but right now I need all of my fans’ help. It’s crazy because a lot of radio stations aren’t playing my records. They’re not being that supportive and I wouldn’t expect them to. It’s on the fans and what you guys do in your power to bring me back because that’s all I need. Nothing else will do that except for the fans. There’s nothing else that I can do. I’m doing everything that I need to do. I’m doing me as a person and I’m a better guy,” the star says.

“My singing and my music I do it for you guys and everything else but it won’t be possible if I’m not relevant on the radio and it wouldn’t be possible for me to be an artist if I don’t have any support. I can’t be an underground mixtape artist. That’s where we are. I just want all my fans to help me. I love y’all. Peace,”

Chris, we’re sure your fans are the ones that bought your album and supported you in the first place. It’s corporations and hurt supporters that have dropped you like a hot potato. Domestic violence isn’t a light issue. It especially didn’t pair well with your nice boy image. You can and will have to wait it out. In the meantime, you could do a much better job of dealing with this. Get a PR company that specializes in damage control. Janet Jackson was blacklisted for her Super Bowl performance, and she continued to work on her music anyway. You can’t always have what you want. Humility sure would do you a wonder of good. Threatening to disappear if you have to be an underground mixtape artist will get you replaced, which is basically happening as we speak on it.

Chris Brown needs to adopt a mantra of less talking, more doing. His mouth continues to get him in trouble. The eloquent, nice-boy-next-door image was totally ruined once he started speaking. Whether he means it or not, he comes off too entitled. He doesn’t understand. He can either play by the industry’s rules or get blackballed. No artist’s career is guaranteed to last long this day in age. He’d be smarter by moving on to plan B by either starting a record company and bringing in artists until his brand improves, opening a dance studio, or begin a speaking engagement tour around the US against domestic violence. His life. His choice.

*Images courtesy of NY Daily News and Hip Hop Star Ship.