Tems says she has left the streets because she is tired of men wasting her time
Nigerian singer Temilade Openiyi, known as Tems, has said she has “left the streets,” a phrase often used when a woman is marrying or has stopped looking for love.
She said so on a TikTok livestream on Monday and did not spell out a wedding. She did say she was done with men wasting her time. “I don’t like it when guys waste my time. But for me, never again. I don’t have that problem anymore. I have left the streets; I wouldn’t even say I was ever on the streets.”
She has spoken before about men who approached her with other motives. In an interview with YouTuber Korty EO last year she said many who wanted a relationship were mainly interested in her body, and that she would have preferred something genuine and deeper.
“Left the streets” is doing two jobs in one sentence. In popular talk it can mean a ring. In Tems’ telling it can also mean a closed door: no more time spent on people who were never serious. She even walks back the phrase—“I wouldn’t even say I was ever on the streets”—which keeps the announcement from becoming a confession. The Grammy-winning catalogue already made her a public figure; the livestream makes her dating life a public text.
Listeners who want a fiancé’s name will not find one here. What they have is a boundary stated in the language of the timeline. Whether that boundary is marriage, celibacy or simply higher standards is her business until she chooses to say more. The consistent thread from the Korty interview to this live is the same complaint: attention that is not matched by intent. She has now said that complaint no longer runs her calendar.
