Inside Amber Rose's Relationship With Wiz Khalifa

For several years, Amber Rose and Wiz Khalifa were one of the hottest couples in the hip-hop world — or anywhere, for that matter. From the time they started dating in 2011 until their divorce in 2014, their high-flying relationship attracted plenty of attention. And it's no wonder — according to MTV News, they made no secret of their attraction to each other, sharing their blossoming romance openly in the media and during public appearances. And at first, the brash, outspoken model and entrepreneur Rose and rising rapper Khalifa seemed to be a match made in heaven — they didn't hold back from getting mushy when talking about each other. "That's my baby," Rose told Us Weekly about Khalifa. "He is my little angel. I love him." And Khalifa returned the sentiment. "She just gives me the world and I can't ask for no more than that," he told the magazine.

Alas, their bliss was short-lived. By 2014 — after a year of marriage and a son together — the couple filed for divorce, according to the BBC. But while their romance didn't last, their fondness for each other did. As Rose told the Daily Beast, she and Khalifa are "the best of friends." So their relationship had a happy ending after all, but not without its share of twists, turns, and seriously bumpy spots.

In most historically traditional couples, the guys are often older while the women are younger. Amber Rose and Wiz Khalifa are certainly an exception to this convention — she's four years older than he is, as noted by Us Weekly. This was no doubt a non-issue for Rose, who's outspoken about her desire to live life on her own terms. "I can't sit around and stress anymore about the Internet and what people say about me," she told Cosmopolitan. "I just gotta do me.'"

But Khalifa suggested in an interview with Playboy that even this relatively small age difference — on top of his youth when their relationship started — may have contributed to the collapse of their marriage. "I'd been present in the relationship, but at that age and with what was going on, it just wasn't right for me. It helps to walk away sometimes, even though it was super hard," he said. Later in the same interview, when asked if he'd marry again, he confirmed he had a lot of growing up to do before he'd be ready to settle down again. "I feel like I'll probably get married again when I'm in my 50s," he told Playboy.

Most parents report their lives changing radically after the birth of their first child. But celebrities and others with hefty budgets can avoid much of the stress of new parenthood by outsourcing the heavy lifting to nannies. Amber Rose and Wiz Khalifa, however, took their new mission as parents seriously — so seriously that, as Khalifa told Playboy, his desire to do right by their son caused some friction in their marriage. "My main goal is to raise my son how I want," he said. "I'm a control freak, and not being able to control that was weird. I didn't know how to deal with it and didn't understand that feeling."

Rose likewise shapes her life around her son's schedule and needs. She told Cosmopolitan that because she gets up at 6:30 a.m. to make him breakfast every day, her nightlife — apart from occasional lucrative paid club appearances — is pretty limited. And she's more than willing to go the extra mile to broadcast her commitment to her kids (she later had a second son from another relationship). As Us Weekly reported in 2020, she had their names boldly tattooed onto her forehead.

Unfortunately, Amber Rose and Wiz Khalifa's wedding proved to be the beginning of the end of their relationship. As their marriage deteriorated, rumors of infidelity began to fly, according to TMZ. After she signed with NCredible Entertainment, a talent management company run by Nick Cannon, whispers circulated that Rose and Cannon had become romantically involved. Further fueling the rumor mill was the fact that, at that time, Cannon was dealing with his own relationship drama — his messy divorce from Mariah Carey, as noted by Billboard.

But Rose vigorously denied the accusations of infidelity, and instead accused Khalifa of being the unfaithful one in their relationship. "Please stop with the fake stories, I would never cheat on my husband in a million years," she wrote on Twitter (per Billboard). "I think u guys know this." She continued in a subsequent tweet, "Unfortunately my now ex husband can't say the same."

TMZ reported that people close to Khalifa seemed to confirm Rose's accusations, saying that he had indeed slept with another woman. However, it was said that Khalifa and Rose were separated by that time and the rapper felt their marriage was already over.

When Amber Rose filed for divorce from Wiz Khalifa and demanded full legal and physical custody of Sebastian, their 1-year-old son, Khalifa wasn't about to let go without a fight. According to E! Online, he filed a legal response to Rose's divorce petition in which he requested joint custody of their son. And he brought plenty of ammunition to the battle: According to TMZ, in the days leading up to the filing of his legal papers, he'd compiled a long list of accusations alleging Rose was an unfit mother. He accused her of frequently staying out late, spending just 15 minutes with their son each morning before taking off for her own activities, and engaging in loud, obscenity-laced arguments with her mother in front of their son, which Khalifa claimed were upsetting to him.

Thankfully, however, Rose and Khalifa ultimately decided that their son's well-being was more important than their egos. According to TMZ, Khalifa was the first to extend an olive branch, asking Rose to listen to the lyrics of his song "See You Again," which went, in part, "How could we not talk about family when family's all that we got? / Everything I went through you were standing there by my side / And now you gonna be with me for the last ride." Moved by his sentiments, Rose relented, and the two agreed to joint custody of their son, according to the Mirror.

Divorce almost always triggers complicated emotions, and when the papers are signed and the drama is officially over, there are any number of ways to honor the occasion — burning one's marriage license, or perhaps a good cry on a close friend's shoulder. But at the end of the heavily publicized, conflict-filled feud that was their divorce, Amber Rose and Wiz Khalifa — who, by that time, had made peace with each other and with the end of their marriage — chose a unique way to cap off their marriage, according to People: by spending a night at a strip club. "Too much fun with my Ex hubby last night & no we didn't celebrate our divorce we celebrated our love 4 each other cuz that never goes away," Rose posted on Twitter the next day.

Months later, Rose still found herself having to explain her night out with her ex. "We would never celebrate our divorce," Rose told the Daily Beast. "We mourned it. It was a very difficult time. Wiz literally just called me and said, 'I'm gonna take my baby mama out. I love you, you're my best friend, so let's go spend some money on some strippers.'" As a former stripper herself, Rose was all in — and made sure Khalifa was ready to invest some serious cash in her former peers. "I'm a former dancer so I need to throw some money. So we went and we just had the time of our lives," she told the Daily Beast.

Amber Rose and Wiz Khalifa may be have discovered that marriage was not for them, but as Khalifa told Playboy, it was a good ride while it lasted. "It was cool; it was fun," he said. He also added that marriage was an intense learning experience that forced him to grow up fast. "I learned a lot. Things that would've taken me much longer to learn, I learned in a short period of time," he explained. These things no doubt included parenting as well navigating life as half of a celebrity couple, which brought its own challenges, especially as rumors of trouble in their relationship began to circulate. "Suddenly everyone has advice," he recalled. "I'm a private dude, so I only talk to my family and the people next to me. I don't trust anybody with information, so I would never tell a rapper how I really felt."

As fondly as he remembers the high points of their marriage — and as fond as he remains of Rose — he told Playboy that he now realizes leaving was the right thing to do. "I feel like not being in that relationship helped me out a lot," he said.