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Akon and his wife, Tomeka Thiam, are headed for divorce after 28 years of marriage.
According to a report TMZ published on Friday, September 12, Tomeka Thiam filed legal documents to end her marriage to the veteran artist. Thiam submitted the paperwork just four days before the couple's 29th wedding anniversary. She listed their wedding date as September 15, 1996, and claimed the reason for their split as "irreconcilable differences." The couple shares a 17-year-old daughter, Journey, and Tomeka has requested joint legal custody. However, she also asked for physical custody of their daughter and wants Akon to get visitation rights.
In addition, Tomeka Thiam asked the judge for spousal support, but she requested to block any attempt to give Akon spousal support. Thiam is allegedly one of four wives that the "Locked Up" rapper is married to. Akon made headlines a few years back for his views about polygamy. He previously said he has nine children in total and is there for all of them.
“[Polygamy is] part of our culture. Absolutely,” Akon told Zeze Millz in 2022. “For me, it looks normal, because it’s culture for us. We didn’t go outside of our African culture when we got to the Western world. See, the flaw that the Western world made is they created all these rules without putting nature into account.”
As of this report, Akon has not commented on his wife's divorce proceedings.