Over time, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have made their way to the top of the list of Hollywood power couples. Individually, the pair are accomplished performers, business owners, and multi-talented artists but their careers are now as intertwined as their personal lives. Since their first collaboration with 2002’s “’03 Bonnie & Clyde”, the two have embarked on multiple joint tours and released songs and even albums together, all with incredible results.
For two of the artists with the most Grammys ever, the Carters have managed to keep their personal lives more private than one might expect for two celebrities at their level of fame. Most everything the public knows about the couple seems to have been carefully revealed by their respective teams, and yet, things do slip through the cracks — that infamous video of Solange and Jay-Z getting into a physical argument in an elevator comes to mind, as does Beyoncé’s tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the incident on the “Flawless” remix.
From their first meeting to Lemonade, here’s everything we know about Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s relationship.
The two first met in 2000 but wouldn’t start dating until 2001
In an (incredibly hard to find) interview with Seventeen, Beyoncé revealed the two first met when she was 18 and Jay-Z was 30 in 2000. Jay-Z would later confirm in the song “713” the pair met in Cancun at the MTV “Spring Break” festival and sat next to each other on the return flight. The pair waited a year to actually begin dating, first talking on the phone as friends for a year and a half, according to a Beyoncé interview with Oprah Winfrey. When Beyoncé split with her long-term childhood boyfriend of 9 years, her and Jay-Z went on their first date at the popular sushi spot Nobu and chose to keep their relationship private, partially based on advice from Oprah herself: “I remember the first time you were on the Oprah show and I told you, ‘Don’t go around telling people who you’re dating. I think you took that all the way,” a laughing Oprah told Beyoncé during their interview.
Beyoncé has said the relationship initially started off as nothing serious, telling Seventeen, “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.”
Early collaborations with “’03 Bonnie & Clyde” and “Crazy in Love”
While they hadn’t publicly declared their relationship, the two began collaborating musically shortly after they started dating. Starting with the song “’03 Bonnie & Clyde” on Jay-Z’s seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse, a relationship between the two quickly became a subject of public speculation. The song famously sampled 2Pac’s 1996 classic “Me and My Girlfriend” with the two singing about how they’re “down to ride ’til the very end.” If they wanted to spark a conversation, this was a surefire way to do so.
The couple worked together once again on “Crazy in Love,” the absolutely massive lead single from Beyoncé’s debut solo album Dangerously in Love in 2003. The lyrics and the pair’s onscreen chemistry continued to fuel rumors they were an item, but the pair continued to follow Oprah’s sage advice and remained quiet about their possible romance. The intrigue only helped their success; “Crazy in Love” would go on to win in the best R&B song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration categories at that year’s Grammy ceremony. In 2004, they would finally confirm their relationship by walking the MTV VMAs red carpet together.
More collaborations and a secret wedding
In 2006, Beyoncé dropped her (iconic and legendary — but I digress) album B’Day on her 25th birthday and featured her boyfriend on songs like “Deja Vu” and “Upgrade U.” It was more than apparent that the couple had realized how well they went together musically and the collabs continued on Jay-Z’s song “Hollywood” from his album Kingdom Come.
Somehow, the two managed to marry in 2008 with a quiet ceremony in Jay-Z’s New York penthouse. Only their close family and friends were in attendance but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and People magazine reported about the secret wedding only a few short weeks after the event. It was reportedly “a very emotional wedding — lots of crying — and really very spiritual,” and the two continued to stay private about the wedding for a while after; when a well-wisher congratulated Jay-Z on his nuptials, the rapper coyly responded that he “had no idea” what they were talking about.
Beyoncé announces her pregnancy the biggest way she knows how
A few years into their marriage, Beyoncé performed “Love on Top” at the 2011 VMAs, but had a special announcement to share at the end of her performance: she was expecting. “I want you to stand up on your feet. I want you to feel the love that’s growing inside me,” she told the awards show audience before happily revealing her pregnant stomach. Pregnancy rumors had followed the couple for some time; in her 2013 documentary Life Is But a Dream, Beyoncé revealed the rumors had been particularly hard on the couple given a miscarriage she suffered before her public pregnancy.
On Jan. 7, 2012, the Carters welcomed their first child, a daughter named Blue Ivy, into the world. In a very 2012 move, Beyoncé shared the first photos of her newborn on her official Tumblr account, writing, “We welcome you to share in our joy. Thank you for respecting our privacy during this beautiful time in our lives.”
World stop! Carry on.
After keeping relatively quiet all year — the two performed and attended President Obama’s second inauguration, just like they did his first, and released a joint song, “Part II (On The Run),”on Jay-Z’s Magna Carta album— Beyoncé surprise dropped her self-titled album on Dec. 13, 2013. The album, complete with accompanying music videos for each song, became an instant classic and included the stand-out single “Drunk in Love,” featuring Jay-Z (we’ll never get “surfbort” out of our heads). While mostly a solo affair from B, Jay-Z made a cameo in the steamy music video for “Partition.”
The album is also the first time fans got a glimpse that their might be trouble in paradise for the couple, with songs like “Jealous” hinting at infidelity.
Of course, sometimes matters escalate when there’s a billion dollars in an elevator
After the 2014 Met Gala, security footage leaked of Beyoncé’s sister Solange seemingly attacking Jay-Z in an elevator while Beyoncé watches silently. None of the three people involved have ever confirmed why the altercation took place (though Beyoncé did mention the incident in the above “Flawless (Remix)”) but rumors began spreading that Solange had been upset with Jay-Z over him allegedly cheating.
The three put out a joint statement, downplaying the incident and saying they hoped to keep it private as they had already worked through it as a family. “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.” Amid rumors of divorce, Beyoncé and Jay-Z embark on a joint tour and appear as a happy family when she accepts the Video Vanguard award at that year’s MTV VMAs.
Beyoncé drops Lemonade
After performing at that year’s Super Bowl halftime show, Beyoncé dropped a new visual album titled Lemonade and brought those cheating rumors back into the spotlight. Lemonade is a concept album about a troubled marriage filled with infidelity and relationship struggles, and while Beyoncé never directly confirms the material as autobiographical, that’s immediately what everyone believes the album to be.
Multiple songs address the subject of infidelity, but “Sorry” in particular led fans to speculate on the identity of the “other woman.” The lyric “He better call Becky with the good hair” inspired some invested fans to aggressively comment bee emojis on several different women’s social media posts in an effort to find “Becky.” Many believed Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s marriage to be on the rocks at this point, but a joint performance during the final performance of the Formation World Tour confirmed the two were still going strong.
Twins!
In 2017, Beyoncé announced she was expecting twins in an iconic Instagram post. On June 13, 2017, daughter Rumi and son Sir Carter were welcomed into the world. Later that same month, Jay-Z released his 13th album 4:44, where he rapped about his infidelity and relationship with his wife. In the title track, the rapper notably expresses regret by writing, “I apologize, our love was one for the ages and I contained us / 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.”
In an interview with the New York Times later that year, Jay-Z admitted to his infidelity, saying his cheating stemmed from him shutting down his emotions while in “survival mode.”
Everything is Love and the present
The couple released a joint album titled Everything is Love in 2018 a few weeks after announcing the On the Run II tour. The album would net them another Grammy for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 61st Grammy Awards.
After releasing her latest album Renaissance, Beyoncé attended the 2023 Grammy Awards solo, but it appears the couple is still very much in love and supportive of one another. When Beyoncé broke the record for most Grammy awards, she gave her husband and children a special shoutout, thanking them for their support as they watched from home.