Beyoncé Biographer Says Lemonade’s Not About Jay Z Cheating
Have you been in a Beyoncé-Jay Z cheating rumors K-hole since Saturday or is it just us?
Either way, the did-he-or-didn’t-he suspense is killing us. We know Beyoncé’s latest release, “Lemonade,” is full of allusions to a cheating husband, and we feel like Rita Ora really, really wants us to think she’s the “Becky” referenced in the songs. We also know plenty of other women are getting dragged as a result.
But the one thing we actually don’t know, you guys, is whether or not Jay even freaking did it! And now, Beyoncé’s unauthorized biographer has come forward to say he doesn’t think Jay’s cheating is plausible.
Cosmopolitan nabbed an interview with J. Randy Taraborrelli, the author of “Becoming Beyoncé: The Untold Story.” And while Taraborrelli doesn’t really know Beyoncé firsthand, he’s probably spent more time than anyone else interviewing her associates and studying her every move, so he might know a thing or two about her patterns.
And he’s not sold on the narrative that Jay cheated on Beyoncé and that directly inspired “Lemonade.” For one thing, he says he spent 40 hours interviewing Beyoncé’s ex from before Jay Z, Lyndall Locke, and that time left him convinced that following Lyndall’s infidelity, Beyoncé would never tolerate a cheater again.
Then there’s the fact that the public is voraciously obsessed with Jay Z and Beyoncé’s marriage — and all the rumors of cheating that come along with it. This leads Taraborrelli to believe that Beyoncé created “Lemonade” to capitalize on public obsession with her relationship:
“… she’s also a very calculating career strategist who understands how to take full advantage of the popular narrative about her life, and the popular narrative about her life right now is that she and Jay Z are having marital problems.”
Furthermore, he says that if she was actually having marital problems, she’s far too private a person to sort through them in a public forum. Instead, he speculates that “Lemonade,” like most art, is inspired by a bunch of different experiences — her dad’s confirmed infidelity, her parents’ divorce, maybe her ex’s cheating. Who knows?
For what it’s worth, he also asserts that he doesn’t know for sure whether Jay’s ever cheated. “But,” he adds, “it’s a real stretch to say that she is the kind of artist who only writes from personal experience. Sometimes she does of course, like all artists, but you can’t take every song that she writes and assume that what’s going on in the song is actually what’s going on in her private life.”
The world will probably never know how much of “Lemonade” is true and how much is false, but we should definitely give Beyoncé credit for being an incredibly shrewd businesswoman. She might be writing about her own heartbreak, but she’s also smart enough to deploy an album all about it at the exact perfect time.
We really don’t know what Jay has or hasn’t done. But if you’re one of those people who just can’t even fathom the possibility that Jay cheated, here’s some harsh truth from comedian and writer Brooke Arnold that sums it up pretty well:
I keep seeing people asking: “Who would cheat on Beyonce?!”
Uhhh … A MAN
— Brooke Arnold (@brooke_arnold) April 26, 2016
