‘We built this big, beautiful mansion of a relationship that wasn’t totally built on the 100 percent truth’
Jay-Z and Beyoncé may be one of the most talked about couples in the world, but they are also one of the most private.
They rarely post social media updates about each other and unlike a lot of A-Listers we have never known the ins and outs of their relationship – that is until very recently.
Just last year, Beyoncé released Lemonade, her Grammy Award-winning sixth studio album, with most of it referring to her rapper husband’s infidelity.
‘Can’t you see there’s no other man above you? What a wicked way to treat the girl that loves you’ read one line in Hold Up, while another in Don’t Hurt Yourself read ‘You know I give you life, If you try this shit again you're gonna lose your wife.’
Just weeks ago, Jay-Z released his response to Lemonade: an album of his own where he publicly apologises to his wife, appearing to admit to his infidelity.
‘Look, I apologize, often womanize, took for my child to be born to see through a woman’s eyes’ reads one of the lyrics on Jay-Z’s title track, 4:44. He continued: ‘And if my children knew, I don’t even know what I would do. If they ain’t look at me the same, I would probably die with all the same – “You did what with who?” What good is a ménage à trois when you have a soulmate? “You risked that for Blue?”’
This week Jay uploaded a ‘footnotes’ video to Tidal, where joined by close friends from Kendrick Lamar to Will Smith, the rapper commented on the themes of the track and the inspiration behind it, surprising everyone by getting very personal about his marriage.
‘This is my real life,’ he explained. ‘I just ran into this place and we built this big, beautiful mansion of a relationship that wasn’t totally built on the 100 percent truth and it starts cracking.’
He continued: ‘Things start happening that the public can see. Then we had to get to a point of “OK, tear this down and let’s start from the beginning.” It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.’
