Usher has been blasted on social media for using fake money at a Las Vegas strip club.
The ordeal began when a woman shared a photo of the money dubbed “Ushbucks,” which the "I Cry" singer and his friends left lying around at Sapphire Las Vegas after a recent night out.
"Ladies what would you do if you dance all night for usher and he threw this??" the woman wrote alongside the photo of the fake money. "& THE MONEY DOES NOT HAVE A TRADE IN VALUE WHAT SO EVER! LMAO DON'T YA''LL THINK HE SHOULD BE BLASTED ON SOCIAL MEDIA FOR THIS S**T"
The post went viral but, according to Sapphire, it was all a big misunderstanding.
"Usher was a true gentleman and a great guest at the club," said the club's director of marketing, George M. Wilson, IV, to Page Six. "He and his crew converted thousands of real dollars to tip the girls dancing on the stage," and "left a generous tip for the staff! Apparently someone in his team left some Usher dollars on the floor to promote his Vegas residency," Wilson continued. "That is where it seems the confusion came in. But real actual cash was used for tips. We would love to host him again."
It is now said that Usher and his friends were flinging the “Ushbucks” around on Friday night to promote his upcoming residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Responding to the reports, Sapphire's owner Peter Feinstein told Las Vegas Review-Journal that he first thought it was all a big joke.
"I guess part of his entourage came in with a briefcase full of these 'Ushbucks' and they were passing them around. Now I’m getting all these calls from all these different news outlets interested in what happened," he said.
"The $100 bills created a lot of excitement, because they look so much like real bills. But this wouldn’t have created a problem, except some of our entertainers tried to cash them in at the cage where we make all of our transactions," Feinstein continued. "That’s when the pedal hit the metal, so to speak. But he also left a lot of real money, bought a lot of ‘Dance Dollars,’ which we do create and use in the club."
Feinstein added that Usher would always be welcome back at Sapphire.
"We’ll have him back in the club, and we would love to host him again," he said. "He was a gentlemen, and he spent a lot of money in here. It was just an unusual party experience."
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Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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