Lionel Richie took shots at the Usher and Chris Brown tour in Phoenix

Lionel Richie stopped between songs at the Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix in mid-August 2026 to weigh in on the stadium tour Usher and Chris Brown were co-headlining, and did not spare either of them.

In fan-shot video from the show, the former Commodores co-lead singer told the crowd that Usher and Chris Brown think they are doing something new, that the Commodores and Earth, Wind & Fire were doing the same thing 40 years ago, and then landed the line. "Only difference is, between then and now, we didn't go to jail!"

He carried on from there, telling the crowd his generation were fine Christian men, and that they did not have Instagram and TikTok and people going out to tell a lie and post it. His own timeline is a little loose, since he had left the Commodores and was well into a solo career 40 years ago.

Chris Brown answered the next day in a comment on the Phoenix radio station Sunny 104.3's Instagram video, writing that he loves the older man and calling him paw paw. Brown pleaded guilty last month to affray over a 2023 London nightclub incident and faces up to three years, with sentencing set for September. He served 108 days in county jail in 2014 after admitting a probation violation.

The tour Richie was aiming at had already produced a run of odd moments, all of them involving Usher rather than his co-headliner. He went viral for bringing a woman on stage in Nashville for a flirtatious bit she was visibly not enjoying, then for allegedly sending a body double on stage in New Jersey, and again for beckoning a hotel doorman to hold a door.

The run has been commercially successful regardless, and both artists have kept adding dates to it. We have covered the eight extra stadium shows added to the run and its $100 million box office haul. Dates sit in the tour guide beside our rnb-soul coverage.