During an appearance on TODAY with Jenna & Friends, the R&B icon Toni Braxton reflected on her one-year wedding anniversary with her husband, Bryan “Birdman” Williams, co-founder of Cash Money Records.
When host Jenna Bush Hager mentioned the milestone, Braxton smiled: “Yes, to Bryan. Everyone calls him Birdman — or Stunna,” she said, laughing. “I say Bryan.”
The exchange opened a window into the softer side of a relationship that’s been both public and deeply private with speculations about whether the couple is married. “We’ve been friends for over 25 years,” Braxton said. “He used to go to all my shows — he was there for my baby shower, things like that. Nothing ever crossed the line. He was my dearest, dearest friend.”
That friendship eventually evolved into something more. “He came to see me when I did Beauty and the Beast. He got there just before intermission, and I’m like, ‘Why are you here so late?’ He thought it was an opening act,” she recalled, laughing. “It’s Broadway — there’s no opening act.”
According to Braxton, the timing of their love story was divine. “We’ve been friends for a long time, and then a love connection started happening a couple years ago. But it happened the way it was supposed to — like the North Star guiding everything.”
The couple quietly tied the knot in 2024 after years of speculation and on-again, off-again engagement rumors. Now, a year later, Braxton seems grounded in the kind of peace that comes with finding love where you least expect it — in someone who’s been there all along.
As she put it on the show, “It happened when it was meant to happen.”
“We were friends for over 25 years… and then love just found us.” — Toni Braxton
Source: worldmusicviews.com