Beyoncé and Jay Z are absolute masters of the art of media judo – essentially meaning that whenever they are attacked or confronted with negative press, they know exactly what to do to use that momentum, flip it around, and make it positive. It’s part of the reason they are so beloved – they’re basically Teflon – and it’s part of the reason that otherwise terrible fight caught in the elevator between Jay and Beyonce’s sister Solange was referenced by both artists in their music and everyone loved it.
But now some claims are emerging in a new book that even grand masters like Hov and Bey couldn’t flip. According to Entertainment Tonight, author J. Randy Taraborrelli is readying an unauthorized biography entitled Becoming Beyoncé, and in the book, Taraborrelli claims that Jay Z and Beyoncé were separated for an entire year because Jay had a wandering eye for pop megastar Rihanna.
“Beyoncé didn’t know what to make of this, and it actually ended up breaking them up for a time,” he claims. “They spent maybe a year apart from each other because Beyoncé just wasn’t sure of what to make of the situation with Rihanna.”
And that infamous elevator tape with Solange clobbering Jigga? Yup, again rumored to be over Rihanna.
The author has heard from eyewitnesses at the Met Gala that the argument occurred after Beyoncé told Jay Z he could not go to Rihanna’s after party.
“It was a whispered married couple’s argument that would have gone by completely unnoticed had not Solange overheard it,” he adds. “Solange has always been Beyoncé’s biggest protector.”
Now, of course, we have to take this information with a grain of salt, but rumors of Jay cheating have emerged before, like when Bey changed the lyrics of her song “Resentment” at a concert in 2014 to come from a first-person perspective (the timing would seem about right). While unauthorized biographies are often heavily sourced and maybe truer portraits of their subjects, they can also be inaccurate at times. But the rumors of Jay Z and Rihanna secretly wanting to be together have stayed around the two since the pop singer’s debut. Is it enough to put Jay in the doghouse for a year? Only the folks in that elevator truly know.
(via Entertainment Tonight)
