Money complicates love more than the average person realizes.
I’m serious.
And it’s not an excuse, but it’s real.
Every day, I see people on the world wide web debating about a celebrity relationship (or *cough* situationship)—the deal breakers, the multiple children, the reasons to leave. And every day I wonder why. High-profile relationships don’t possess the same criteria for us common folk and in most cases, the rules that the ultra-rich play by in matters of the heart, just simply aren’t a part of “our” game.
Like many of us, growing up, I was always led to believe, “Men are only as faithful as their options,” or “All men cheat.”
Being married now, I’ve learned that the “rules” of marriage aren’t always (or ever) as black and white as society makes it seem, so of course, I know better, but even in experience, balancing what we’ve learned and experienced with what we are led to believe, is a struggle. And over time, I’ve realized that this is because we’re all just women with different experiences, in different seasons of our lives, trying to collectively block out the noise, and figure this love shit out for ourselves.
For example, superstar City Girl, Yung Miami, has been linked to mega-producer, executive, and artist Sean ‘P. Diddy Puff Daddy Diddy Love’ Combs. He’s 24 years her senior, the exact age of his youngest son, and about $990 million her senior at the bank. His wealth has afforded him a lifestyle filled with directness and honesty that he gives to women that he dates, which is all we really want from our men, right ladies?
Well…
Recently, the starlet, who never shies away from a topic, dropped a nuclear bomb in the Twitterverse by saying:
I'm not sharing my next nigga!
— Yung Miami (@YungMiami305) March 6, 2023
The post sent social media into a frenzy, as she ultimately threw more gasoline on the fire by later going live on Instagram to publicly state that she’s also never getting married.
“I don’t want to get married ’cause I feel like men are not faithful,” Miami said. “If I get married, I’m giving my life away to you, and I’m going to be with you for the rest of my life. I take everything personal. If I’m with you and you step out on me, I’m never going to forgive you.”
She added, “If my husband cheats on me, I’m going to kill him. I’m going to bury you, because now I’m embarrassed, and I’m never going to look at you the same.”
And just in case there was any doubt of where she and Diddy stood, the "Twerk" rapper would also confirm that she is indeed "S-I-N-G-L-E" while at Rolling Loud. “I’m single, baby. What man you saw me with?” She added in the interview. “Yeaaah, yeah. I’m single S-I-N-G-L-E. Baby.”
Yung Miami sure knows how to get the gworls talking, but keep in mind these comments are coming from the vantage point of a woman who:
- Frequently says she’s single but is also publicly linked to a very powerful man that, although they harbor an obvious sexual attraction to each other, their body language and energy tell the story that they actually like each other.
- Has a brand that is intertwined with his--her massively popular show, Caresha Please being housed on his REVOLT Network, which he previously visited as a guest on the show.
- Has served as the Bonnie to the Clyde of a rich man with no traditional approach to public romance, thus, taking on the ridicule that comes along with accepting his lifestyle, while still managing and checking the flooding emotions that develop in the process.
- And lastly, has over-stated that their arrangement is their business, and they are just having fun in the process.
In the past, Miami has been linked to producer Southside, who she has a daughter with, and Diddy has famously had 7 children with four women (including an infant Love Sean Combs born sometime during his situation with Yung Miami) and was previously in a long-term relationship with Cassie for over ten years. And it may have taken Cassie a little time, but she eventually found love and a family with a man that adores her.
So, we can’t judge a woman’s journey to love. Sure, there may be variables that position one situation in a different tax bracket, but at the end of the day, we all want our person. One of my favorite things about womanhood is that as we mature, we unapologetically learn to check whatever isn’t serving us anymore. And most importantly, what we require from others evolves too.
Right now, all I see is a young rich, beautiful, and poppin' woman denouncing marriage because she loves hard, so she requires for her person to match her energy. And she’ll find exactly that.
But until then, as a woman, give her grace. Hell, give us all grace. We may have our individual journeys, but we’ll find our love.
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Featured image by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak