14 DAY TRIAL // The rumor that Jay Z had an affair with his younger protégée Rihanna has been around since 2005, before Rihanna’s breakout single “Pon de Replay” came out. That was no coincidence, as revealed in celebrity biographer J Randy Taraborelli’s latest unauthorized biography, “Becoming Beyonce: The Untold Story.”
The rumor, which might or might not have been true, was leaked to the media by Rihanna’s then-publicist Jonathan Hay as a means to boost the young singer’s public profile, the book claimed. Hay confirms it for the New York Daily News: yes, he did plant the story and yes, he’s very sorry he did.
Jonathan Hay comes clean
Taraborelli claims in his new book that, even though the rumor was leaked to the press with the explicit purpose of getting media attention, Beyonce always thought there must be some truth to it, or else it would have never come out.
Apparently, so convinced she was that Jay was cheating on her that, sometime in 2005, she asked for a “break” so she could see if there was any future to the relationship. Moreover, the author says, the infamous 2014 post-MET Gala elevator fight, when Solange put a beatdown on Jay while Beyonce was looking on, was also linked to this Rihanna rumor: Solange went crazy when Jay insisted they attend a party hosted by Rihanna.
Hay says that he never thought of the full implications of the leak, especially since he never imagined the rumor would stick.
“I apologized to [Beyonce]... this whole thing is very awkward,” he says. “I was blindsided by the news of Becoming Beyonce coming out and it couldn't come at a worse time for me. The PR stunt that I did was out of desperation to help break Pon de Replay. It was reckless and I didn't think it was going to work. I was just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick.”
An awkward situation indeed
Hay isn’t exaggerating when he’s saying the timing of the book couldn’t have been worse for him: he is no longer working as a publicist and is now a full-time music producer. Just recently, he launched a new project on Tidal, the music streaming service that Jay Z founded and owns.
Having this ancient history brought up and in the headlines again must surely make interactions between the 3 very awkward, assuming there is any kind of interaction at all.
On the other hand, Beyonce and Jay Z have been working in the industry for long enough to know how this kind of things works. If you think of how Beyonce played the media after the elevator fight, often hinting about divorce and marital trouble in concert just so she could get more media coverage, they probably understand why Hay came up with the rumor Jay was cheating with Rihanna.