Jay-Z and Beyoncé might be the reigning king and queen of hip hop, but they've also been
dodging rumblings about infidelity ever since they wed in 2008.
With "a billion dollars on an elevator," drama is bound to follow.
And after years of speculation, we finally understand those Jay-Z cheating rumors.
It all started with Rihanna
Jay-Z and Beyoncé had a few drama-free years before an onslaught of cheating rumors started
to dampen the facade of their seemingly perfect relationship.
They started dating in 2001 and then around 2005, reports surrounding Jay's alleged affair
with Rihanna hit the headlines and strained his relationship with Beyoncé.
"I met with Jay-Z and before I met him it was really like you know I was shaking but
he’s such a cool guy the atmosphere was really comfortable."
According to the unauthorized biography Becoming Beyoncé, the pair secretly separated because
Beyoncé didn't know how to respond to the speculation.
When she released the raucous breakup track "Ring the Alarm" in 2006, members of the Beyhive
assumed the lyrics were about Rihanna and Jay, though Beyoncé's camp denied that inspiration.
Regarding whether there was any truth to the gossip, it turns out that the rumors may have
been manufactured by Rihanna's publicist, Jonathan Hay, to boost her career.
Hay, in fact, owned up to the ordeal in a 2015 email to the New York Daily News, admitting
he'd apologized to both Jay and Rihanna for making things up.
Rita Ora was the next suspect
Jay-Z and Beyoncé finally tied the knot in 2008 at the rapper's lavish Manhattan penthouse,
and then they welcomed their daughter Blue Ivy four years later.
In 2013, the Carters dueted on "Part 2 (On the Run)" off of Jay's Magna Carta Holy Grail
album, and Queen Bey dropped her HBO documentary, Life Is But a Dream.
Unfortunately, things couldn't stay smooth sailing forever, and Rita Ora was the next
person to get stuck in the insidious honey of the Beyhive.
Jay signed the English singer to his Roc Nation label in 2008.
Their professional partnership ended in a dramatic lawsuit in 2015, after they were
previously hit with rumors of an affair in 2013.
However, Ora adamantly denied the claims.
When the hosts of Power 105.1's The Breakfast Club brought the allegations up during a 2014
interview, Ora said,
"Don't you dare disrespect Beyoncé like that ever again in your entire life.
You should know better than that … That's just straight up disrespect.
You can't even go there."
Mýa and the lyric change
In 2014, reports suggested that Jay-Z and Mýa, who'd worked together on the 2000 single
"Best of Me, Part 2," were involved in a longtime alleged affair.
There were even rumblings that the R&B singer had been financially supported by Jay.
Queen Bey herself actually added fuel to the fire when she changed the lyrics to her cheating
anthem "Resentment" during an On the Run tour stop.
The original line was "Been riding with you for six years," but she changed the six to
twelve, which was exactly how long she'd been with Jay-Z.
Of course, the Beyhive went absolutely bonkers.
Why Mýa was brought into the cheating speculation has remained unclear.
But for her part, she denied ever having an affair with Jay-Z in a since-deleted Instagram
post.
As she put it,
"I play second to no one, pay my own bills, have my own label, own management company,
rely on God only and respect myself & marriage too much for nonsense.
False rumors are crafted for ratings & numbers."
Lemonade and 4:44
Beyoncé's 2016 visual album Lemonade was like a battle cry for every woman who's ever
been cheated on.
It more or less confirmed that Jay-Z had been unfaithful, though who the other woman was
still is a matter of speculation.
Still, the rapper himself used his own album, 4:44, the following year to explore the complicated
emotions that come up when you hurt someone you love.
Both albums were deeply emotional and honest to the point that bordered on uncomfortable.
In an interview with The New York Times' T Magazine, Jay-Z admitted that the couple had
used their musical outlets as a means of therapy, but noted that the reality was pretty excruciating
and likened it to being in the middle of a hurricane.
He explained,
"It was uncomfortable.
And we had a lot of conversations … You know, most people walk away, and like divorce
rate is like 50 percent or something ’cause most people can’t see themselves.
The hardest thing is seeing pain on someone’s face that you caused, and then have to deal
with yourself."
Finally squashing the rumors
The cheating rumors surrounding Jay-Z were finally put to rest in 2017 when he owned
up to the act in his T Magazine interview.
But he didn't go into much detail about how he and Beyoncé were doing in the wake of
the revelation until his 2018 appearance on David Letterman's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.
"I have a beautiful wife who's understanding and knew that I'm not the worst of what I've
done.
And like, we did the hard work of going to therapy."
For what it's worth, the Carters have since made a comeback as an apparent united front.
They've reclaimed the hip-hop throne with the surprise release of their collaborative
album, Everything Is Love, in June 2018.
Renting out the Louvre for a music video was basically an ode to them ruling over us civilians
with their billion-plus net worth, after all.
The pair pulled in a whopping $250 million from their On The Run 2 tour that same year,
proving that all they "need in this life of sin" is each other.
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