Usher's Wild Ride

Usher rips a baseball cap off his head, smacks it down on a dressing-room countertop and growls, "Fuck this motherfucking shit!" A minute ago, he pulled up in his silver Hummer to the Fox Theatre, the ornate 1920s palace in downtown Atlanta, to begin filming a video for his summer tour, but suddenly he started ranting and raving, then sprinted up four flights of stairs to this lounge, three paunchy crew guys trailing as he went by in a blur. They stagger to the doorway, huffing and puffing. "Motherfuckers in here now!" Usher yells.

"I'm getting here late — for real — and still nothing's organized," he says, his normally adorable face, still childlike at twenty-five, contorted with rage. "Venue not what it's supposed to be, dancers all around downstairs and ain't supposed to be: As usual, everyone's tripping and I'm un-abreast of the motherfucking plans. Nigga's got to do what a nigga's got to do, and I ain't doing it. I ain't gonna do it." He grabs his hat and kicks the door open. "I be out."

Then he pops back in, smiling a goony grin: "April Fools'!

"You was gonna lose all your hair, man," says Usher.

"You were gonna soil your pants from shit heat," says one of the crew to another.