It’s only Monday and yet it is already clear that this will be the worst week of PR that Beyoncé and Jay Z have had to face in a very long time. The previously untouchable married music moguls have been caught in the crossfire of the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs allegations, with Jay Z accused in a civil suit of having raped a 13-year-old girl at a Diddy party in 2000.
Jay Z, real name Shawn Carter, has denied the allegations. In the legal action, an anonymous victim claims that she was raped by Carter and Combs at VMAs afterparty in 2000. She claims that after arriving at the afterparty and being handed a glass of something that made her feel “woozy”. She then recalls lying down in a bedroom, where she claims Combs and Carter raped her while an unnamed female celebrity watched.
Carter vehemently denied the accusations via a post on social media, in which he wrote: “My lawyer received a blackmail attempt, called a demand letter, from a 'lawyer' named Tony Buzbee. What he had calculated was the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny would make me want to settle.
“No sir, it had the opposite effect! It made me want to expose you for the fraud you are in a VERY public fashion. So no, I will not give you ONE RED PENNY!!”
Carter then addressed how the claims would affect him, Beyoncé and their three children, Blue Ivy (aged 12), Rumi and Sir (both aged seven). “My only heartbreak is for my family. My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims, and explain the cruelty and greed of people.”
But this isn’t the first storm the Carters have weathered publicly. From debates over their age gap, when they first started dating, to a well-documented cheating scandal that rocked the world (and spawned a number one album). Here’s a timeline of the pair’s tumultuous relationship.
2000: Beyoncé and Jay Z start dating
Beyoncé Knowles first formally met Jay Z when she was 18 and he was 30, as part of the MTV Spring Break Festival in Cancún, Mexico in 2000. Both Jay and Destiny’s Child were performing. On Jay Z’s 2018 track 713, Carter raps about meeting his wife at the event and sitting together on the plane back to New York. However, he also claims that he and Knowles didn’t date until nearly two years after this meeting.
“Fate had me sittin’ next to you on the plane / And I knew straight away, uh / The next time we would speak was like two years away / You had a man, you shut it down until you two had a break / I bet that dude rued the day / You kept me up on the phone while you were away / You came back, I let you set the date, Nobu on the plate / I brought my dude to play it cool, my first foolish mistake.”
Beyoncé has confirmed this in other interviews, previously telling Oprah: “We were friends first for a year and a half before we went on any dates. We were on the phone for a year and a half, and that foundation is so important for a relationship. Just to have someone who you just like is so important, and someone [who] is honest."
2001: The pair appear on the cover of Vanity Fair
Though their relationship was not public at this point, Carter and Knowles featured on the cover of Vanity Fair together in 2001. Looking back on this time, Carter has reflected that this was when he and Beyoncé “were just beginning to try to date each other.”
#TBT
— JAY-Z Daily (@JAY_Z_Daily) November 28, 2019
That time Jay-Z and Beyoncé both appeared on the cover of @VanityFair's 2001 Music Issue.
“We were just beginning to try to date each other.” - Jay, 12 years later when he was asked about the cover pic.twitter.com/i4GoLqd4Hh
He told Vanity Fair in a later interview, “Well, you know, you've got to try first. You got to dazzle... wine and dine...She's a charming Southern girl, you know, she's not impressed... But I would have definitely had to be this cool.”
2003: Beyoncé and Jay Z release ‘Crazy in Love’
Though Beyoncé had previously hopped on the track for Carter’s 03 Bonnie & Clyde, Crazy in Love was undoubtedly the single that defined the couple’s hard launch. It remains their most famous collaboration to date, even after an entire joint album and the raunchy runaway success of 2013’s Drunk in Love. Although the pair still wouldn’t confirm the relationship to the public, this is widely considered to be the moment people decided they were definitely dating.
2004: Red carpet debut at the VMAs
Beyoncé and Jay Z made their red carpet couple debut at the VMAs in 2004, where Jay Z wore an all-white suit and trilby and Beyoncé wore an embellished jacquard blazer and matching shorts. It was very 2004.
2008: Beyoncé and Jay Z tie the knot
After a laidback few years of dating (and a steady stream of collaborations on Beyoncé’s B’Day and Jay Z’s Kingdom Come) Knowles and Carter finally decided to become The Carters on April 4, 2004. In case the number 4 is standing out to you (4:44 is also the title of a Jay Z album) that’s because it’s an important number to the couple: Jay was born December 4, Bey was born September 4, they married on April 4 and have matching IV roman numeral tattoos as a result.
The Carters' “intimate” wedding ceremony is still shrouded in secrecy to this day, though it is believed to have taken place at the couple’s Manhattan penthouse. “It was a very emotional wedding — lots of crying — and really very spiritual,” a source told People at the time, adding that the luxurious apartment with 70,000 dendrobium orchids flown in from Thailand for the event.
At this point, Beyoncé was 26 and Jay Z was 38. “There was no rush — no one expected me to run off and get married,” Beyoncé later told Seventeen of her wedding day. “I really don't believe that you will love the same thing when you're 20 as you do at 30. So that was my rule: Before the age of 25, I would never get married. I feel like you have to get to know yourself, know what you want, spend some time by yourself, and be proud of who you are before you can share that with someone else.”
2012: Blue Ivy is born
The Carters welcomed their first child, Blue Ivy Carter, on January 7, 2012. A month later, Beyoncé shared an image of Blue via her Tumblr (throwback) and said: “We welcome you to share in our joy. Thank you for respecting our privacy during this beautiful time in our lives,” they wrote.
2014: Solange attacks Jay Z in an elevator
The fight that spawned the immortal line: “Of course sometimes s**t go down when it's a billion dollars on an elevator.”
At the 2014 Met Gala, a fight broke out between Solange Knowles, Beyoncé’s sister, and Jay Z while the three of them were in an elevator. Security footage obtained by the press went viral, sparking a wildfire of rumours trying to make sense of what could have caused the argument. Though it has never been confirmed, many assumed it was due to some fledgling cheating rumours that were swirling around the couple at the time. It’s probably just rumours, though, right?
2016: Beyoncé releases Lemonade, confirms cheating rumours
Without warning, promo or press, Beyoncé dropped a full album, Lemonade (complete with an entire film of visuals), on April 23 2016. On the album, she essentially confirms that Jay Z cheated on her, opening with the lyric: “You can taste the dishonesty, it's all over your breath.” At other points, she simply asks: “Are you cheating on me?”
This finally seemed to settle the argument of what went down in the Met Gala elevator. Of the album, Beyoncé's mom Tina Knowles Lawson said, “It could be about anyone's marriage. I think that everybody at one time or another has been betrayed and lied to and it's about the pain and it's about the healing process and it's about, ‘How do you get past that and move on.’”
After the release of Lemonade, Beyoncé made several public appearances solo, including the Met Gala and the VMAs, where she perfored a medley from Lemonade. Though she did meet up with Jay Z at the afterparty.
Later that year, Beyoncé released the full video for All Night on YouTube, including footage from her wedding video.
2017: Rumi and Sir are born, Jay Z admits to cheating
On February 1 2017, the couple shared that they were expecting twins, writing on a post of Beyoncé's pregnancy reveal, “We would like to share our love and happiness. We have been blessed two times over. We are incredibly grateful that our family will be growing by two, and we thank you for your well wishes. – The Carters.” Rumi and Sir were born in mid-June, 2017.
Later that year, Jay Z also publicly admitted to his infidelity, telling The New York Times’ T Magazine: “You know, most people walk away, and like divorce rate is like 50 percent or something 'cause most people can't see themselves,” he said. “The hardest thing is seeing pain on someone's face that you caused, and then have to deal with yourself. So, you know, most people don't want to do that. You don't want to look inside yourself. And so you walk away.”
After this, the couple enter an obvious kiss-and-make-up stage, and all remains well.
2024: Jay Z is accused of rape in a civil suit as part of the P Diddy allegations
All has been plain sailing for the Carters since the great cheating drama of 2017 — until now. When rap mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was charged with sex trafficking and racketeering in September, it seemed almost unavoidable that Jay Z would be drawn into it at some point. Carter and Combs’ friendship is well-documented, with the pair pictured together on countless occasions.
In the civil suit, an anonymous victim claims that Shawn Carter and Sean Combs raped her at a VMAs afterparty when she was 13 years old. She says that she arrived at the party and was handed a drink that made her feel “woozy”, so went to lie down in a bedroom. The legal action alleges that Carter and Combs entered the room with an unnamed female celebrity and raped the 13-year-old while the unnamed female celebrity watched.
Carter has denied the allegations, writing on social media: “My lawyer received a blackmail attempt, called a demand letter, from a 'lawyer' named Tony Buzbee. What he had calculated was the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny would make me want to settle.
“No sir, it had the opposite effect! It made me want to expose you for the fraud you are in a VERY public fashion. So no, I will not give you ONE RED PENNY!!”
He added: “My only heartbreak is for my family. My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims, and explain the cruelty and greed of people.”
