Marques Houston Says Women His Age Come With ‘Baggage And Kids’

Marques Houston is still defending the 19-year age gap in his marriage, revealing the reason he didn’t have any luck dating women his age.

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Houston first made headlines in 2020, when the 38-year-old revealed that he was engaged to 19-year-old Miya Dickey. She’s now 22, while he’s 41, and they welcomed their first child in 2021–and the R&B singer is still defending his decision to marry someone so much younger.

In a new interview with Page Six, Houston says that women his own age came with too much “baggage.” He also said that he didn’t like “funky attitudes” when it came to dating.

“A red flag to me [was] always with a woman that had a kid,” he told the outlet. “Nothing against single women, but single mothers with children are a red flag for me…I tip my hat and respect women that are raising children on their own. But when I grew up, I never really wanted to have kids.”

Houston  went on to say: “I would talk to my dad a lot, and he would always tell me to have your own kids because you never know what the baby daddy‘s are about. So if you’re gonna have kids, make sure it is with a woman that never had kids. So that was always my red flag… and a woman with an attitude. I don’t like women with funky attitudes.”

Still defending his decision to propose to a teenager, Marques insists him marrying a woman his age–or older–would have been a recipe for disaster.

“I’m 41, she is 22. I could’ve married a 44-year-old woman, and it could’ve been disastrous,” the singer said.

“Women that are my age… they kind of have a different outlook on life,” he continued. “Like a lot of women my age are very independent. They are very like, ‘I don’t need a man to do this for me ’cause I can do it for myself.’ I come from a generation that I love to provide for my wife.”

He added: “There’s a lot of women my age I’ve dated, they may have baggage. They may have kids, they may not. There’s so many different women I’ve been with throughout my life, and it just so happens to be that this one [Miya] caught my heart. Everything that I prayed for — and everything that I wanted in a woman — she came with. Although she was young, I’m young in spirit.”