Gabrielle Cheyenne, 24, has been sharing her side of the story since the video of her awkward onstage moment with hip-hop star Usher at a July 25 concert went viral.
In the clip, Gabrielle looked visibly uncomfortable during an audience serenade segment before the R&B artist asked her to leave.
She later said she wasn’t the biggest Usher fan and was at the concert for the other lead singer of the night, Chris Brown.
“This girl is being so unnecessary and disrespectful, and she’s not even the Coca-Cola she thinks she is,” one person said.
Gabrielle Cheyenne was called onstage for Usher’s sensual serenade gig
Image credits: Gabrielle Cheyenne/Facebook
According to her Instagram, Gabrielle Cheyenne is from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and recently graduated from nursing school. She has a son whose name and age are unknown.
On July 25, she attended Usher and Chris Brown’s The R&B Tour Stop at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium with her mother, Tia Byrd.
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Gabrielle later explained in a Facebook post that she and her mom had floor seats.
The event team approached them and moved them up to VIP seats before the show started — an upgrade she labeled as “pretty privileges.”
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They also told her that she would get the chance to appear on stage during the concert, but did not specify with whom or for which segment.
At one point during his performance, Usher called her up for a steamy serenade to his 2004 song Can U Handle It?
Gabrielle was escorted offstage after an awkward onstage interaction
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Gabrielle walked on stage and sat on a prop bed while the singer, shirtless, performed a sensual dance routine around her.
She appeared tense and uneasy, though smiling, and pulled back as Usher leaned in to touch her face.
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Realizing there was no reciprocation, Usher stepped back and said to the audience, “I don’t think she wanna be onstage, y’all,” as the crowd started booing.
She was reportedly escorted offstage by the team and enjoyed the rest of the concert from her VIP seat.
As the incident sparked backlash, where many condemned her for going onstage in the first place, Gabrielle took to social media to explain herself.
“First off, NOBODY is declining to go onstage,” she wrote in a post. “I looked good asf, you thought I wasn’t gonna let THOUSANDS of people see me?”
“They don’t say who you’re going up for! Y’all wanted me to get up there and f**k him atp?”
Netizens ripped into her for negative comments about Usher after the incident
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Gabrielle’s video went viral shortly after the concert, with many saying she “fumbled” the chance of a lifetime and wasn’t a real fan. Others supported her for drawing a boundary.
But some of her statements in its aftermath have drawn even more backlash than the incident itself.
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In one comment that is making the rounds on X, she allegedly said, “[Usher] was pouring sweat and looks worse in person up close. But I don’t have to explain anything to anyone.”
“She’s mad cause she got ditched on stage and publicly exposed as a boring vanilla b**ch,” one person reacted to it.
Another said, “This is the exact thing she wanted to happen, to go viral for being ‘different.’”
Image credits: gabrielle.cheyenne/Instagram
“I don’t get why she’s being rude. No decorum whatsoever,” a third commented. A fourth wrote, “She’s a pick me looking for attention, that’s all it is.”
Some thought that Gabrielle was deliberately “dragging” the matter for her “15 minutes of fame,” while a few believed she was being “unfairly” targeted on the internet.
Gabrielle has clarified she has no “bad blood” with Usher, but would’ve rather been onstage with Chris Brown
Page Six reported that she told Chris Brown’s backup dancer, Lance Savali, she had “no bad blood” with Usher, and she didn’t “feel a way toward him.”
“It wasn’t that I wasn’t into Usher… I went to the concert for Chris Brown,” she said in a TMZ interview. “There’s nothing against Usher, but I’m more of a Chris Brown fan than I am of Usher.”
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“So, of course, it would’ve been a different reaction with Chris Brown — the stiffness or whatever the internet is portraying.”
She also addressed the matter on Instagram Live after netizens began wondering why she didn’t participate in the serenade, including speculation that she had a partner.
Image credits: gabrielle.cheyenne/Instagram
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“Y’all don’t know if I’m in a relationship, if I’m not in a relationship, who I’m with, where I’m at, or anything,” she said, emphasizing that she didn’t have a public-facing social media presence before the Usher incident.
“It got blown way out of proportion… How do y’all know that once I got up there, I didn’t feel uncomfortable?” she said. “I don’t have to explain what exactly went through my mind.”
Image credits: Gabrielle Cheyenne/Facebook
Gabrielle’s mother, Tia, shared a backstage photo of her daughter posing with Usher’s wife, Jennifer Goicoechea, saying, “Usher’s WIFE & Gabrielle Cheyenne after the stage appearance. Y’all, she ain’t mad, so why tf y’all mad?”
“The brain is birding.” The internet called Gabrielle Cheyenne out after she walked offstage during an Usher concert
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