There’s love in this club, and this club is unfortunately the Skims marketing department.
On Monday, the Kim Kardashian–led shapewear brand dropped the latest in a series of hole-in-one ad campaigns, this one featuring upcoming Super Bowl halftime performer Usher. Less than a week out from the big game, we now have imagery of the Confessions singer in nothing but a pair of Skims’s five-inch cotton boxer briefs, and I suddenly find myself wondering if I should plan a Super Bowl party for the sole purpose of seeing that ad on a big screen. These are my confessions, what can I say?!
“The thing I like most about performing is the element of intimacy between me and the audience,” Usher says as he smirks straight into the camera in a campaign video set to some heartbeats. He then tosses around a peach, squeezes it, and lets it drip in a manner not far off from the infamous Call Me By Your Name peach scene. This, my friends, is what we call sexual overtones.
Hot off the heels of his Las Vegas residency — in which he serenaded a pit of screaming women including Khloé Kardashian over the course of 100 shows — Usher is now dropping trou to promote the upcoming release of his ninth studio album, Coming Home. His first since 2016’s Hard II Love, the new album is set to hit shelves two days before the Super Bowl. And if this is just a preview of what an Usher homecoming might look like, I will gladly open my doors and decorate my living room with balloons and streamers in anticipation of the visuals for the rest of the album. Welcome home, Usher. You can move in with me anytime.