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Beyoncé and Jay-Z are the power couple to end all power couples. Untouchable, unknowable, unstoppable. They're great together, like on the joint album Everything Is Love, and of course, just as popular apart. She pioneered visual albums like Lemonade; he gave New York City its modern anthem: “Empire State of Mind,” featuring Alicia Keys.
And they're far more than musicians. Jay-Z’s entertainment agency, Roc Nation, is super successful, and he brought the Nets to Brooklyn. Those ventures, plus his other investments, made him the first hip-hop artist to make the billionaires list. As he says on 4:44’s “Family Feud,” “Ain't no such thing as an ugly billionaire, I'm cute.” Bey, meanwhile, mentored up-and-coming artists like Chloe x Halle, has the Ivy Park fashion line, and oh right, the most Grammy Awards of anyone ever. 32. 32!!! There's a reason the Beyhive is so devoted.
But we have to imagine that they are most proud of the three humans they've managed to co-create. Rumi, Sir and Blue Ivy Carter are icons in the making. Them, combined with a two-decade-long relationship…yep, family goals.
As fans know, the pair have had their ups and downs, but if there's anyone who can make marriage work at this level, it's them. Here's how they got—and more importantly stayed—together:
We don’t know the exact date when Beyoncé and Jay-Z first met, but she did give us an idea when talking to Seventeen in 2008. “I was 18 when we first met, 19 when we first started dating,” she revealed. “There was no rush—no one expected me to run off and get married.”
The biggest thing to happen this year is their appearance in Vanity Fair’s music issue right when they started dating. “We were just beginning to try to date each other,” rapper Jay-Z said years later. Beyoncé told Oprah Winfrey that they had a friendship as their foundation. “We were friends first for a year and a half before we went on any dates,” she said.
A year later they must have realized that their star power was that much more impactful when they performed together. Their first musical collaboration is when Beyoncé appears on Jay’s “03 Bonnie and Clyde.”
Next they drop “Crazy in Love,” which is possibly one of the most fun songs to dance to with your friends. It even earns them a Grammy for best R&B song. The lyrics aren't shy about the fact that they're a couple: “I've been playing myself, baby, I don't care. ’Cause your love's got the best of me,” she sings.
Nonfamous couples usually make their big debut on Instagram or by changing their relationship status on Facebook. When you’re a superstar, the big debut usually happens on a red carpet. Bey and Jay are no different when they step on the carpet together for the 2004 VMAs.
After years together Beyoncé starts getting a bit of wedding fever. She tells Cosmopolitan, “I don't know when I'll want to get married. I never pictured myself as a bride, but after my sister's wedding, I did start thinking about what kind of wedding I'd want. I don't think I want a big one.” She even says that her fellow Destiny’s Child members, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams, will be her bridesmaids.
It’s evident that Beyoncé’s 2006 interview was foreshadowing her eventual secret wedding on April 4, 2008. The wedding date is also significant (4/4) because of the couple’s love and frequent use of the number. The wedding is “very emotional,” according to a People source.
Their secret wedding was not so secret anymore. During an interview with Vibe, Jay-Z explains why he and his wife want to keep the personal details of their relationship out of the public eye. “You’ll go insane in this type of business,” he says. “You have to have something that’s sacred to you and the people around you.” He's not wrong.
After much speculation, Beyoncé finally admits that she's pregnant. While performing “Love on Top” at the VMAs, she tells the crowd, “I want you to stand up on your feet. I want you to feel the love that’s growing inside me.”
Sadly, a couple of years later, she reveals that it wasn’t her first pregnancy. In her documentary Life Is but a Dream, she discusses her miscarriage. “I heard the heartbeat, which was the most beautiful music I ever heard in my life… being pregnant was very much like falling in love,” she says. “[Early into the pregnancy] I flew back to New York to get my checkup—and no heartbeat. Literally the week before I went to the doctor, everything was fine, but there was no heartbeat.”
The Knowles-Carter dynasty grows when Bey and Jay welcome their first child, daughter Blue Ivy Carter, in New York City on January 7, 2012.
The world gets to meet Blue! Like the icon she is, Beyoncé shares the first photos of her daughter in a unique way. She posts them on Tumblr, writing, “We welcome you to share in our joy.”
Bey reminds the world of her talent and her influence by performing a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
The world gets another peek into Bey and Jay’s life in the Life Is But a Dream documentary on HBO, directed by Beyoncé and featuring lots of raw home footage. Still, they keep their distance, and the singers are only rarely unguarded.
Later in the year they begin to focus on music and release a couple albums. Jay’s Magna Carter Holy Grail includes a collab with his wife on “Part II (On the Run).”
Then Bey shocks the world by dropping her surprise visual self-titled album. On it, she and the rapper sing together on “Drunk in Love.” Where once they were crazy in love, now they're drunk in love, and he's eating her breasteses for his breakfast.
Now this is where the drama begins. (We know you were waiting for it.) After the Met Gala on May 7, footage surfaces of Beyoncé’s sister, Solange Knowles, seemingly attacking Jay in an elevator at an after-party. The rumor is that she attacked her brother-in-law because of cheating rumors.
Later they release the following statement: “There has been a great deal of speculation about what triggered the unfortunate incident. But the most important thing is that our family has worked through it. Jay and Solange each assume their share of responsibility for what has occurred. They both acknowledge their role in this private matter that has played out in the public. They both have apologized to each other and we have moved forward as a united family. The reports of Solange being intoxicated or displaying erratic behavior throughout that evening are simply false. At the end of the day, families have problems and we’re no different. We love each other and above all we are family. We’ve put this behind us and hope everyone else will do the same.”
Bey seems to reference the incident later in the “Flawless (Remix)." She sings, "Of course sometimes s--t go down when there's a billion dollars in an elevator.”
Things appear to be much better between Beyoncé and Jay-Z as they hit the road for their joint On the Run Tour.
Rumors begin to swirl that Bey and Jay were on the brink of divorce. “They are trying to figure out a way to split without divorcing,” a source tells Page Six. “This is a huge concert tour, and they’ve already gotten most of the money from the promoters up front.”
The insider adds, “Jay was outdoing Jay, and Bey was outdoing Bey. They made the classic mistake of thinking a child would change everything and help to rekindle the initial fire, and it didn’t.”
Solange discusses the elevator incident in Lucky, saying, “What’s important is that my family and I are all good. What we had to say collectively was in the statement that we put out, and we all feel at peace with that.” Hmmmm.
Bey and Jay’s relationship seems to be better by spring. He shares a video of the two of them exchanging vows at their wedding. Later in May they attend the Met Gala sans elevator attacks.
This is when the reign of Queen Bey reaches new heights. Her performance at the Super Bowl halftime show is more important than the game itself (if you ask us).
What did we do to deserve the love our queen showed us in 2016? Just two months after her knockout performance, she drops her visual album Lemonade on HBO. Except it's…kind of a breakup album? There are entire songs about infidelity, not to mention that “Hold Up” music video of her just smashing a car's windows with a baseball bat.
Songs (and certified bops) like “Formation” and “Sorry” don't make it sound like her home life is going well. Fans begin analyzing the lyrics to figure out who, exactly, “Becky with the good hair” is and what she did. It is not a good time to be named Becky.
Beyoncé seems to silence possible divorce rumors when she gives a shout-out to Jay-Z during her final performance on the Formation World Tour.
Everything is good in the world again when Beyoncé announces that she's pregnant (with twins!) in a beautiful photo.
The caption reads, “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.”
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The Knowles-Carter dynasty grows by two when Rumi and Sir Carter enter the world. Later that month, Jay drops his album 4:44, which seems to confirm his infidelity.
“I apologize, our love was one for the ages and I contained us,” he raps. “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 prolly die with all the shame.” Sigh.
Jay-Z talks more about the difficulties in his marriage in an interview with T: The New York Times Style Magazine. “So even with women, you gonna shut down emotionally, so you can’t connect…. In my case, like, it’s deep. And then all the things happen from there: infidelity,” he admits. “We were using our art almost like a therapy session. And we started making music together. And then the music she was making at that time was further along. So her album came out as opposed to the joint album that we were working on. Um, we still have a lot of that music. And this is what it became. There was never a point where it was like, ‘I’m making this album.’ I was right there the entire time.”
They announce their joint tour, On the Run II, but there’s still no mention of the joint album Jay mentioned in his Times interview. Beyoncé shuts it down a month later at Coachella.
Bey and Jay finally release their joint album, Everything Is Love, which they go on to perform during their OTR II Tour.
They first announced the album during a London concert during their tour. “You’ve all given so much love every time we come here—thank you,” Beyoncé tells the crowd. “Because we love you all so much, we have something special for y’all. We want you guys to be the first to experience this new project.”
Beyoncé voices Nala in the Lion King live-action film. She and Jay-Z attend the premiere, where they meet British royalty, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. They had previously used a picture of Megan in a video for their song “Apesh*t.” And for a moment, all is well with the world.
She then releases an album, The Lion King: The Gift, curated for the movie. She also creates a visual album inspired by music from The Lion King. Black Is King is dedicated to her son, Sir, and is available to stream on Disney+.
The pair stir up a bit of controversy when they pose for a Tiffany Jeweler's ad featuring a painting by the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiát. The painting in question was privately owned by Tiffany & Co., but friends of the artist and others in the art world felt that its use in advertising was inappropriate, and that the painter would have wanted his work to be publicly accessible, like in a museum.
Beyoncé seemingly references the Jay-Z cheating rumors in her Renaissance album, released on July 29. “I know nobody's perfect so I'll let you be, I'll let you be. It's the way that you wear your emotions on both of your sleeves, 'til the face you make when I tell you that I had to leave,” she sings on the track “Plastic on the Sofa.” “We don't need the world's acceptance. They're too hard on me, they're too hard on you, boy.”
Some fans also believe Beyoncé references the Solange elevator incident in the single “Cozy.” “She’s a god, she’s a hero, she survived, all she been through, confident and she lethal,” Beyoncé sings. “Might I suggest you don’t fuck with my sis, because she comfortable.”
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In a letter on her website, Beyoncé dedicates the album, in part, to her husband and their children. “I want to give a special thanks to Rumi, Sir, and Blue for allowing me the space, creativity, and inspiration,” she writes. “And a special thanks to my beautiful husband and muse, who held me down during those late nights in the studio.”
On June 20, amid Bey's Renaissance World Tour, the pair attend the Louis Vuitton menswear show in Paris, held on the city's oldest bridge. They're there to support friend Pharrell, who has become creative director for the brand. They're there to support friend Pharrell Williams, who is showing for the first time since becoming creative director for the brand.
This post will be updated.
