Yuna hugs Usher and people go crazy!

Yuna has become the talk of the town again, but this time for a not so good reason.

A video of she and R&B singer Usher hugging have gone viral on social media, causing some haters to question her ‘boundaries and limit’ as a Muslim woman.

(Photo source: beautifulnara.com)

Yuna recently performed her hit song “Crush” with Usher during one of her live gigs in Philadelphia. At the end of the song, the singer and Usher hugged spontaneously, and this has caused criticism among certain netizens.

“My father always told me ‘You make your own decision. You can think. Why do you have to listen to other people?’ Isn’t it weird, the biggest racism and discrimination that I’ve ever faced, was never from the Americans – it was from my own race,” Yuna said in a long Instagram post.

“There I’ve said it. They call me ‘perempuan sampah’ and tell me to ‘might as well go naked’. The worst, hurtful and sexist things I’ve ever had thrown to me, were from the lips of the Malays. All I can do is be patient. Allah is great. And Alhamdulillah for everything.”

“So this is me. I will wear whatever I want. I will show my appreciation whether it's a handshake, or a hug, to my friends, this is me. Save your mediocre downgrading religious preach to yourself, they have no meaning to me,” she continued.

Throwback from when I was on Barney's campaign 2014 celebrating cultural differences, shot by Bruce Weber. I remember when this first came out I was so scared of posting it because I knew the extremely rude conservative Malays (mind you I'm conservative too) would attack me for revealing my neck. Honestly. At this moment I was comfortable. The stylists from Barney's were kind and respectful of my beliefs and let me wear this beautiful shirt dress. I get to pose with this lovely Punjabi couple along with a fellow half Malaysian model who later became my friend. People ask me what ethnicity I am I tell them I am Malay. Why can't you wear a short dress? I tell them I am Muslim. Someone once told me my experience is mine. No one else is living it. No one has lived it. Outsiders have the illusion that they can tell you how to live your life because- they have lived theirs letting OTHER people tell them how to live. My father always told me 'You make your own decision. You can think. Why do you have to listen to other people?' Isn't it weird, the biggest racism and discrimination that I've ever faced, was never from the Americans- it was from my own race. There I've said it. They call me 'perempuan sampah' and tell me to ''might as well go naked'. The worst, hurtful & sexist things I've ever had thrown to me, were from the lips of the Malays. All I can do is be patient. Allah is great. And Alhamdulillah for everything. So this is me. I will wear whatever I want. I will show my appreciation whether it's a handshake, or a hug, to my friends, this is me. Save your mediocre downgrading religious preach to yourself, they have no meaning to me. I have some Americans telling me to take my hijab off, and I tell them no. I have some Malays tell me to take my hijab off because 'from wearing a turban might as well take off your hijab', I tell them no too. I am me. Tada! Expect more candidness from your fun, happy, Yuna. May it inspire you to be yourself too without letting the toxic people around you define you or how you should be. No regrets, no hard feelings I will continue to empower women and men everywhere as long as I live inshaAllah. Lepas ni.. no filter! Yay!!

A photo posted by Yuna (@yunamusic) on Jul 20, 2016 at 8:30am PDT

Many fans came to Yuna’s defence explaining that the singer didn’t hug Usher on purpose, as one user explained, “From the very beginning, it can be seen that Yuna tried to keep her distance from Usher. Usher approached her, she moved from here to there.”

“At the end, Usher opened his hands to give Yuna a hug. Yuna bowed down to him, maybe as an act of refusal. But Usher seems insisting to do so. So she just awkwardly hugged him. I can tell by looking at her body language,” said Facebook user Lugman San.


The fans are not the only ones defending the Malaysian star, another famous Malaysian singer, Shila Amzah who currently stays overseas also voiced out her opinion on the situation.

“I do understand how hard it is to live abroad. They don’t understand our culture. Not that we want to turn what is haram into something halal, but before her, there’s already a lot of them (hugging) on TV.”

I do understand how hard it is to live abroad.Diorg x faham culture kita.bkn nak halal kan yg haram.but before her,yg kat TV Dah berlambak😔

— 茜拉 (@Shilaamzah) July 19, 2016

Meanwhile, Yuna tweeted “Drinking tea while reading the comments from haters before going into soundcheck”.

Minum teh jap tgk comment2 haters ni sebelum soundcheck. pic.twitter.com/XrQHhT57CM

— Yuna Zarai (@yunamusic) July 18, 2016