Ne-Yo is divorcing his wife Crystal Renay.
The ‘Miss Independent’ hitmaker has confirmed he and his wife – whom he married in 2016 – have gone their separate ways after almost four years of marriage.
He said: “It’s slowly but surely becoming public knowledge that myself and my wife have decided to go ahead and get a divorce. It’s not a sad thing, it’s more of us realizing- long story short, I’m never gonna talk bad about her. I’m not that person. There’s nothing bad to say about her. She’s a fantastic woman. She’s the mother of my children and she’s always gonna be that and I will always respect her.”
Ne-Yo – who has sons Shaffer Jr., three, and Roman, 20 months, with Crystal, as well as Madilyn, nine, and Mason, eight, with Monyetta Shaw – says it was “difficult” for the pair to “stay married”, but insisted they will be “family forever”.
Speaking on an episode of the ‘Private Talk with Alexis Texas’ podcast, he said: “Long story short, she’s got demons just like everybody else, just like me. We realize that our demons don’t mesh and until both of us get a hold of our personal demons, it’s gonna be just difficult for us to stay married. With that being said, that’s, that’s the end of that chapter, not the end of the book. As I said, that’s the mother of my kids and I love her to death. We’re going to be family forever.”
The ‘Sexy Love’ singer – whose real name is Shaffer Smith – spoke out as rumors had been circling the pair in recent weeks. In the podcast, Smith went on to add that the experience has informed his soon-to-drop track “Pinkie Ring,” and explained that “art imitates life” in this case according to reports on Billboard.
“The song is basically about the way that I chose to feel about the situation,” he said. “I could’ve gone one of two ways: I could’ve let this really break me down, and put me in a place that was gonna be difficult for me to be creative, difficult for me to do what I gotta do, or I could take it in stride and keep moving like we all have to do anyway. That’s the long and short of what the song is about. I’m going to be very honest with y’all: it’s kind of a vent because I was a little angry when I wrote it.”
At of the time of writing, Crystal has not commented publicly on the divorce.
