Who Is Kehlani? Meet Kyrie Irving’s Apparent Ex-Girlfriend

Rhythm-and-blues singer Kehlani was the top-trending Twitter topic Monday after she supposedly got caught cheating on her boyfriend, Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving, with her ex-boyfriend, R&B singer PartyNextDoor.

Kehlani’s name was a top-trending topic because some people were interested in her personal affairs and other people were wondering just who she was. “Kehlani who?” is a popular phrase that was typed into the search bar on Twitter. So to enlighten inquiring minds, here’s a bit more information about Kehlani, aside from the obvious social media drama.

1. She was nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award. Even though scores of people had never heard of Kehlani’s name before Monday, she’s earning a reputation, and a good one at that, in the music business. Her sophomore effort, “You Should Be Here,” was nominated in the best urban contemporary album category. And Billboard touted it as the “year’s first great R&B album.”

2. Kehlani began her career in a teen pop band. Nowadays, she’s a solo artist signed to Atlantic Records, but it wasn’t always that way. The singer started out in a band called PopLyfe, to which she lent her vocals. The group got its big break by auditioning for “America’s Got Talent” in 2011. It landed in fourth place in the reality-television singing competition.

3. “America’s Got Talent” is probably why she left her band. During the show, Piers Morgan told Kehlani, “You’ve got real talent, but I don’t think you need the group.” After PopLyfe was eliminated, Kehlani followed Morgan’s advice.

4. She and PartyNextDoor, aka PND, had a public breakup. They had an on-again, off-again fling, but called it quits for good when PND released a song called “Kehlani’s Freestyle.” He sings: “If I ever had you, think I coulda had you. All your exes mad too, ’cause somehow I just bagged you.”

5. She has lots of tattoos, including face tats. According to Kehlani, they were the least painful. Although she is loaded with body art, she said it wasn’t an easy decision to tattoo her face. “I felt like the way that I’m already tatted, it would be too much to get [the facial tattoos] like, right in the middle of my face,” she said, according to the Boom Box.

6. She loves Chick-fil-A. “I get the same thing so often that my friends go without telling me and bring back exactly what I usually order. It’s that double spicy chicken deluxe, the meal, with Polynesian sauce and a lemonade! I’m a healthy eater, but I don’t consider Chick-fil-A fast food,” she said.

7. Although she’s a California girl, she doesn’t like the water. “My dad passed away when I was little, and he used to be a surfer. My family figured that the actual story of gun violence might be too much for a little kid, so I told myself that he must’ve gotten eaten by a whale or a shark. So, to this day, I don’t go out [in the water] past where my feet can touch the bottom,” Kehlani said.

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