Let’s Talk Hypergamous Men

What we’ve learned from Kandi and Todd’s “Amicable” Divorce

The scheme that Todd set up — Photo created by author using AI

Look, having to submit to Mama Joyce’s ignorant antics was certainly not on my bingo card for 2026, but here we are. Baby, not to justify her extremely poor and embarrassing behavior, but, as much as we were all against Mama Joyce showing her entire behind over Kandi falling in love with “the help,” she proved that she had such a visceral reaction because her mother’s intuition is on a million.

And indeed, in the words of Aunt Bertha, this whole thing was just a scheme that Todd set up to come to us all with the bullsh*t.

[embed]The Old Lady Gang is undefeated — Video Source: Giphy

I’m not going to lie, this one hurts… bad.

And not because I’m weirdly invested in Kandi’s personal affairs, but because her “amicable” divorce from Todd Tucker only served to prove that successful Black women, especially those with darker skin complexions, are never safe to find love.

I mean, on the one hand, they are often not chosen by their male counterparts, who often go for lighter-skinned women who are far less fortunate and thus, infinitely more agreeable to their every whim. On the other hand, when they go for men below their pay grade, they end up funding their lifestyles in the same way that most wealthy men take care of their exes indefinitely.

Now, we regularly see men up in arms when their barely legal brides leave and take them to the cleaners. And I want to be clear, Kandi has a cold team, and he certainly didn’t win an egregious amount of mula, but the fact that he took anything is enough for me to sound the alarm. But if you’ve been following the story, this is exactly what Todd said he would not do: come up off the divorce.

I mean, being connected to Kandi alone significantly raised his net worth. So, the fact that he was awarded additional funds, and specifically, nearly 1 million American dollars and several luxury cars, is rather disappointing to say the least.

Why? Because it’s yet another example that Black women must think three times before falling for the average Joe’s they keep pitching to us. They tell us that ur standards are too high, which is why we can’t find “true love.” But just as Mary J Blige and others have seen, men can pretend to be model partners to gain access to wealth.

The Details of the Settlement

And, to be fair, I’m not saying what Todd and Kandi had wasn’t true love, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that multiple people warned Kandi that Todd was giving opportunist, but, idiotically, we all sided with Black love.

Now look!

According to BET,

Burruss will cut Tucker a clean $426,000 lump sum to balance the scales, and the two will split credit card points down the middle and plan to sell off a shared food truck.

As for their 10-year-old and 6-year-old children, custody lands squarely in co-parenting territory as they’ll both have joint legal and physical guardianship. Burruss will hold onto the children’s passports, but Tucker will be able to snag them for trips abroad.

Though it’s their assets, specifically the car collection that steals the show: Burruss is keeping her 2022 Bentley SUV, Cadillac Escalade, Ford F-250, Porsche Cayenne, and that vintage 1963 Chevrolet Camaro.

Tucker is taking a 2020 Mercedes G-Wagon, 2020 Porsche 911, 2023 Range Rover, 1973 Ford Bronco, 1963 Lincoln, and a Ford Transit van.

First of all, shout out to Kandi’s legal team, because this could have seriously gotten messy. But luckily, she was smart enough to create an iron-clad prenupt.

But, if you blink, you might’ve missed the finesse. My first piece of evidence lies in the simple fact that, at one point, it was being insinuated that he signed the prenup under duress, while her parenting was also being attacked. Moreover, the divorce magically came about around a decade into the marriage, which, as many know, is often when the terms of a prenup are more likely to be up for negotiation.

Look, I don’t know what happened in their marriage or what led to the divorce. Still, when a woman moves like this, it’s immediately a red flag, as it’s always insinuated that the woman is trying to use the kids as leverage to get huge settlements, child support, and more.

Personally, the fact that he tried to position himself as the primary caregiver by pointing out that Kandi, the breadwinner, relied heavily on hired help is where I had to draw the line. (Mind you, why does she need hired help if he’s such an involved father?!)

We’ve all heard this before. It’s just coded language to say, “Well, she’s paying everyone else to watch the kids, so why not pay me to do it?!”

I mean, I’m not here to excuse anyone’s negligence, but it does seem as though people understand when the successful father needs nannies to manage his household, but not the wife. Also, it was never a secret that Kandi is a workaholic.

I mean, this is why she’s still worth $30 million in 2026, when she began her career over three decades ago, right?

Yet, and still, Mr. Tucker took his behind in there trying to paint Kandi in a certain light to try his hand and see if he could somehow create an even bigger payday for himself.

Hypergamous Men

Now, $426,000 may be a drop in the bucket compared to what Kandi is worth, but it’s certainly not nothing. And for a man who was very much living a regular lifestyle before marrying rich, all I hear is Mama Joyce screaming “the manner in which I’ve become accustomed to” ringing in my head.

[embed]Mama Joyce with the W — Video Source: Giphy

So, no, Todd Tucker did not need a million-dollar payday to prove the marriage was a come-up for him. The money he got from the settlement is literally the difference between hustling and grinding your way forward, and comfortably making business deals with plenty of cushion to build a new, cushy life.

And to be clear, despite shaming women for doing so for a millennium, more and more men are now intentionally seeking partners with higher socioeconomic statuses to improve their lives overall.

According to CNN,

More men are marrying up today in part because there are more highly educated women now than there were a few decades ago, according to the study findings. As a result, “women are more likely to get married to a less-educated man,” ChangHwan Kim, PhD, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of sociology at the University of Kansas, said in the press release.

In other words, women are slowly becoming the breadwinners to men who didn’t want to play the role when it was their turn. Men sure love to compete over everything else, but somehow, they’re sitting back, allowing women to outearn them while reaping the financial benefits.

And while Todd didn’t necessarily get over like a fat rat, he definitely came out of this with far more than he had going in. To Kandi’s credit, she’s no dummy, but even so, I’m pretty sure Todd didn’t have access to multiple mansions and luxury cars before this marriage. And he certainly didn’t have the resources and business connections he made by becoming Mr. Todd Burress.

No matter how you look at it, he most definitely came up by marrying Kandi. And while he may maintain that he fell in love and stumbled into riches, it’s also entirely possible that he chose Kandi because he knew it was a win/win situation: either he would stay with her forever, and enjoy the finer things in life that such a union provides, or they would break it off and some point, and th payout would be enough to ensure he didn’t go back to a middle class lifestyle.

Bottom Line

I think as Black women, we are being sold struggle love that doesn’t necessarily exist. Indeed, we are encouraged to date down and give the “good guys” a chance.

But in reality, many of those so-called “good Black men” are just men who learned how to play a role that they realize is missing from the lives of many Black women overall: the supportive husband.

This leaves Black women especially vulnerable, regardless of income levels, because our collective marriage rates are dismal, and we are shamed for being single, and even worse, single mothers at every turn. This often makes Black women feel pressured into accepting “love” in any form it comes in, even if it’s from a man that comes as more of a bill than a provider.

Either way, Todd’s net worth is said to have jumped from around $200-$400K to $ 4 million.

When you’re resourceful and have talent, you don’t have to break the bank to substantially improve your life for the better. And again, I keep doubling back to the fact that Kandi was explicitly warned that Todd was an opportunist before ever walking down the aisle.

Now, could it have just been hateration in the dancery? Of course! But I am a firm believer in the notion that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

And if we don’t believe a man can base his relationship choices on the goal of financial gain, I’m not sure why the ex-wives of rich men are automatically portrayed as gold diggers when they receive lump sums and support.

I’m sure Kandi is doing just fine, and may genuinely be in a good place with Tucker. But given the fact that she called him a squatter and accused him of not holding his weight financially, I’m going to go out on a limb and say she probably made the biggest eye roll when she found out she would have to pay him nearly half a million dollars and give up several luxury cars to get him to go away.

Now, is it possible that he could’ve made this money on his own? Sure. But fortunately for him, he didn’t have to, and now, we will never know…

Do you think Todd is an opportunist?

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