Over the weekend Page Six published a long report on the supposed demise of Beyoncé and Jay Z’s marriage with intel from “a source who has been close to Beyoncé and Jay Z for years.”
A good 80% of the of the evidence put forth in the story comes from this unnamed source. “Inside the crumbling marriage of Jay Z and Beyoncé” cites many of the now-familiar tales of strife in the House of Carter peppered with “insight” from the source. We revisit the rumors that Jay Z and Beyoncé are staying together for business purposes, that Elevatorgate was a sign of a much larger issue within the family and the presumed clues Beyoncé has been dropping while performing her song, “Resentment.”
Page Six also take a look at the history of the couple’s relationship and how it might relate to the problems they’re having now.
“Knowing them as I do, obviously there’s a little something to certain rumors,” the source says. “When your man or your woman isn’t getting it done for you, and I’m talking emotionally, not necessarily sexually … they keep things quiet.”
I’m not sure that this truly qualifies as evidence because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Who keeps things quiet? What are they keeping quiet? Jay Z and Beyoncé are always quiet about their relationship. Is that what they meant?
“There’s no bigger controller than Jay,” the source says. “She’s great, but she’d be a little lower on the totem pole if it weren’t for hooking up with him.” In terms of ambition, talent, business acumen and work ethic, Beyoncé and Jay Z were perfectly matched.
Um, that’s laughable. Beyoncé was already a star from her Destiny’s Child days well before she and Jay Z got together. Of course, over the years her career skyrocketed, but I doubt anyone would seriously attribute any majority of her success to Jay Z simply because they were together at the time. For much of her career, Beyoncé was managed by her father and nine out of her top ten Billboard hits don’t even include Jay Z.
The source says the elevator fight after the Met Ball was really over Jay’s protégé Rihanna, whom he allegedly planned to meet later that night at his 40/40 club. “Solange was like, ‘Enough is enough — you must be [screwing] Rihanna,'” says the source. “To many people who know them, they know it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
This is the least believable tidbit of the entire article. If Jay Z cheated on Beyoncé with Rihanna, then they must have done it on Mars or under an invisibility cloak. An affair with Rihanna seems way too high profile and much too obvious to be true. Plus, those rumors have been around for years, so why would the affair just now become an issue?
The question now is whether to stay married while essentially living separate lives — becoming the Bill and Hillary of hip-hop — or publicly divorce. Ultimately, it will be about the brand. “There’s face-saving involved — they don’t want to be looked at like other celebrities out there,” says the source. “They are business people first, entertainers second. Husband and wife comes somewhere down the line.”
When it comes to face-saving, they may be right. And there are two more things worth noting.
First: Beyoncé spent the weekend posting adorable photos from the shores of a beautiful shoreline none of us can probably afford to visit.
This isn’t the first time Beyoncé has used Instagram to control a PR crisis. The photos may be her way of telling everyone to shut up and move on or to placate the swirling rumors.
Finally, the Carters are incredibly private. As someone on Twitter pointed out, Beyoncé released a monster project late last year without any information leaks or media knowledge. This sudden insight into their personal lives seems a bit dubious considering their history.
At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before someone starts a countdown to the end of the On the Run tour to see if Jay Z and Beyoncé will actually divorce, or if we’ve all been in a tizzy over nothing.
Image via AP