Usher’s famous friends Stevie Wonder and Kelly Rowland joined the singer as he unveiled his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday.
Usher was honoured with the 2,588th pavement plaque, and he was surrounded by family, friends and fans on Hollywood Boulevard.
In addition to Wonder and Rowland, Miguel, will.i.am, music moguls Terry Lewis and L.A. Reid, and Edgar Ramirez, his co-star in new boxing film Hands of Stone, were there to celebrate with Usher.
The ceremony featured a speech from The Weinstein Co. co-chairman Harvey Weinstein, who gave the R&B star his first-ever big screen role in 1999 teen film She’s All That and then cast him as Sugar Ray Leonard in his latest film.
Weinstein praised Usher’s talents, describing the star as a “triple-threat talent like a James Cagney or Michael Jackson” who could do everything.
Usher joked, “This is the first time in history that I’ve ever come in 2,588th place – and it felt like number one.”
The singer, who was also joined by his mum and former manager Jonetta Patton, his wife Grace Miguel and two young sons, took the time to recognise everyone who had helped him on his journey to the Walk of Fame ceremony, saying, “I don’t just celebrate this moment by myself, I celebrate it with those people who invested in me, those people who loved me through my hard times. Mum, thank you for everything and all the people that you’ve actually helped to bring here. They wouldn’t be here if you didn’t recognise and make sure you selected the right people to be around and to help me be the man I am today and in this position.”
Usher also gave a shout out to the many fans who attended the ceremony as well as those all around the world, saying, “It’s because of you that this shining star is here.”
“Now it’s your responsibility to come down here every chance you get to shine my star,” he joked. “That’s the smallest thing that I could ask of you right now especially given the fact that I’m going to be walked on.”
