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‘DWTS’ Champ Iman Shumpert’s Wife Teyana Taylor Is a Force: Meet the Multitalented Singer-Dancer-Actress
With both an NBA Championship ring and a brand-new Dancing With the Stars Mirrorball trophy, you’d think Iman Shumpert would be the most multitalented person in his household. But that title goes to his wife, Teyana Taylor. She’s a multihyphenate who can do it all, from singing and songwriting to dancing and choreography … she acts and designs fashion as well!
Iman, 31, and Teyana, 30, started out as friends early in his NBA career, and she ended up photographing him for one of her styling companies. In 2014, the pair embarked on a romance. They got engaged a year later while Teyana was pregnant with their first child. Iman popped the question during her November 2015 baby shower at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, Ohio (he was playing for the Cavaliers at the time).
A month later, Teyana gave birth to the couple’s first daughter, Iman Tayla Shumpert Jr., whom they call “Junie.” The pair secretly wed on October 1, 2016, and became a family of four in September 2020 when they welcomed another baby girl, Rue Rose Shumpert.
Teyana has been a go-getter ever since she was a teen. In 2006 when she was just 15, Teyana got a choreographer credit for Beyoncé‘s “Ring the Alarm” music video. She signed a record contract a year later and had her own episode of MTV’s My Super Sweet 16, showing her over the top 16th birthday party. In Jay-Z‘s 2007 music video for “Blue Magic,” Teyana can be seen showing off her dance skills.
She formed a friendship with Kanye West in 2010 that would prove fruitful. Teyana lent vocals to several songs on his masterpiece fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. That same year, she also was busy with her acting career, starring in the sequel to the 2007 dance film Stomp the Yard, as well as appearing in Tyler Perry‘s Madea’s Big Happy Family.
Even with her full plate of acting, choreography and music, Teyana’s love of fashion and design continued on from her teenage years. In 2013, she designed a pair of sneakers for Adidas, the Harlem GLC’s, which became the brand’s fastest selling shoe at the time.
Teyana has proved that she’s the true dancer in the family, as evidenced by her starring in Kanye’s 2016 music video for “Fade.” Wearing a sports bra and thong bottoms, she showed off her chiseled body and muscles everywhere, just eight months after Junie’s birth. Teyana also pulled off dance moves that had fans forgetting about Kanye’s song and focused on her amazing talents at movement.
Always the entrepreneur, Teyana crafted a workout program in 2017 around the dance moves in the music video called “Fade 2 Fit,” and later released a line of workout clothing by the same name.
The coupe’s fascinating lives landed them a VH1 reality show Teyana and Iman in 2018. While it only lasted one season, the pair returned to TV in 2021 with another reality series We Got Love Iman & Teyana that airs on E!
With such busy lives, Teyana and Iman make sure they’re always in touch when they’re not together. “We communicate on a day-to-day basis and just know what’s going on with each other so much that [between] the things that we’re supposed to do as far as our job goes and as far as just checking in, there’s no real room for the nonsense,” Teyana told GQ in a 2017 profile that named the pair the “Sexiest Couple Alive.” It’s hard to argue with that!
