When R&B icon Toni Braxton sat down with TODAY with Jenna & Friends recently, she peeled back the curtain on her complex relationship with longtime friend-turned-husband Birdman, revealing how their journey reached a surprising milestone. “We’ve been friends for over 25 years,” Braxton told the hosts, a connection she said laid the foundation for their romance.
The pair quietly married on Aug. 8, 2024, according to court documents. Braxton described how Birdman attended her baby shower and watched her Broadway show, offering support long before romance emerged. “He was my dearest, dearest friend,” she said.
From Friendship to Matrimony
Their romance officially began in 2016, after years of camaraderie. Braxton revealed that during her lupus diagnosis, Birdman’s presence was steady: “Every night he would ask me, ‘Are you okay? Are you good?’ ” she recalled of that period.
In February 2018, the couple announced an engagement. But by early 2019 they called it off, erased social media traces of their relationship and declared they were simply friends.
Braxton told People in 2018, “I never thought we would be dating or getting married.”
Court documents show that, despite the mid-2024 wedding, Braxton filed for divorce two weeks later — listing Aug. 10, 2024, as their date of separation. She described the marriage at that time as “irretrievably broken.”
In a twist, she dismissed the divorce petition in January 2025 with Birdman’s agreement, leaving the marriage legally intact.
Reflecting on this turn, Braxton now frames their story differently: “So we’ve been friends for a long time and a love connection started happening a couple of years ago,” she said. “We’re like peas and carrots.”
On their first anniversary in August 2025, Braxton shared a photo marking the celebration — yet the visual boldness of the ring belied a quiet backdrop of confusion.
She said her gratitude for Birdman runs deep: he has “never crossed the line,” she said, referring to the shift from decades of friendship to marriage.