Jay-Z’s murky past relationships have been thrust back into the spotlight after the news that the rapper has been accused of raping a 13-year-old girl.
The singer, 55, was hit with a civil lawsuit filed on Sunday that claims he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl on September 7, 2000 after the MTV Video Music Awards with Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs, but he insists he is the victim of a ‘blackmail attempt’.
Weeks after the alleged incident, he went public with Beyonce, then 19, at an Armani exhibition, but a photo has revealed they actually first met in late 1997 when the Destiny’s Child star was 16 and he was 28 – although there is no suggestion that anything improper occurred.
However, Beyonce was not the only teenager that Jay-Z was linked to around the same time period, with rumours continuing to this day that he had a relationship with teenage rap sensation Foxy Brown – although she has denied the claims.
She began her career in the music industry in 1994 when she was 15 years old, but it’s believed that it wasn’t until 1995, when she was 16 or just turned 17, that Jay-Z discovered Foxy and recorded the explicit rap song Ain’t No N**** with her.
From 1995 – 2000, he was also embroiled in a five-year affair with his rap rival Nas’s on-off girlfriend Carmen Bryan, which resulted in her falling pregnant, aged 26.
Jay-Z pictured with schoolgirl protégé Foxy Brown in the 90s. Rumours of a relationship between the pair have refused to die down over the years
Brown hugs rapper Jay-Z on the “Best of Both Worlds” tour with R. Kelly , October 29, 2004
NAS’s ex-girlfriend Carmen Bryan had a five-year affair with Jay-Z in the late ’90s and fell pregnant, although she sadly suffered a miscarriage
During a 2005 joint interview on Real Talk with Funk Flex, Foxy spoke about the early days of her career, which started when she was 15, and how Jay-Z would collect her from school for recording sessions.
She said of her mentor: ‘Jay can tell you…he’ll have to pick me up from school and take me to the studio.’
Foxy added that she took correspondence courses to keep up with her education while ‘knocking out’ her records, adding: ‘I was a monster at 15.’
Despite her references to being 15, it’s believed that she first met Jay-Z in late 1995, when he heard her performing on the LL Cool J track I Shot Ya, recorded when she was 16 or very shortly after turning 17.
According to the biography Jay-Z: The King of America by Marc Beaumont, she had ‘a sneer to her flow, a ballsiness to her stance and her lyrics oozing sex, money and designer name tags’.
‘Jay was so entranced he had to have her,’ he said.
Their first song together, recorded in 1995, Ain’t no n****, saw the schoolgirl rapping: ‘Ain’t no n**** like the one I got. No one can f*** you better. Sleeps around but he gives me a lot, keeps you in diamonds and leathers.’
The pair continued to collaborate with Jay-Z rapping on one of her biggest hits I’ll Be, released in 1997. They worked together again in 1999 on the song Bonnie & Clyde (Part II) which featured on Foxy’s multi-platinum second album Chyna Doll.
Various figures in the entertainment industry have since fuelled rumours that there was a sexual relationship between them.
In 2001, the rapper Nas released the diss track Ether aimed at his rival Jay Z, in which he claimed: ‘Foxy got you hot ’cause you kept your face in her p***. What you think, you getting girls now ’cause of your looks?’
Jay-Z and Foxy Brown in the video for AIn’t No N****, which was first recorded when she was around 16 years old
Wendy Williams made reference to the ‘alleged’ relationship during an episode of her talk show in 2021
The pair celebrating the 10th anniversary of Jay-Z’s debut album Reasonable Doubt on which Foxy collaborated
Carmen Bryan’s memoir detailed how she had a five-year affair with Jay-Z while in an on-off relationship with NAS, the father of her daughter
Foxy followed this with her own diss track Let Em Know in 2010, in which she appeared to admit to a sexual relationship with the rapper.
‘They said I f****d with Nas and now they say it’s AZ/But on the low, the real n**** was Jay-Z,’ she said.
Three years later, a gossip webite reported that Foxy, real name Inga DeCarlo Fun Marchand, attended a baby shower where she started questioning the rapper’s sexuality and claimed she lost her virginity to him when she was 15 and he was 27.
Yet Foxy slammed the claims, telling TMZ at the time: ‘The atrociousness of this story sickened me to my stomach. Any and everyone involved will be contacted by my attorney.’
She added: ‘In all my years in the music industry, these are the most disgusting and disrespectful allegations I’ve ever experienced. This fictitious story … with no audio, visual or written interview, clearly was concocted with malicious intent.’
‘Jay has only been wonderful to me and my family, a great friend throughout all the years I’ve known him and we had nothing but great success as a team.’
She continued, ‘Beyonce, his wife, has always been gracious and sweet to me… I will not let any undercover hater create discord and disrespect my name and reputation.’
In spite of her denials, the rumours have refused to die down. On her show in June 2021, TV host Wendy Williams referenced Jay-Z and Foxy, saying: ‘This was allegedly a romantical thing. All right, I’ll say alleged. But we know, we know. Yeah she hit it before Beyonce.’
Meanwhile Foxy addressed rumours that Jay-Z forced her to sign an NDA about her alleged relationship with the star back in October.
Responding directly to a Tisa Tell’s YouTube video which explored Foxy’s connection to Jay-Z and Diddy, she called the post ‘fake news’ and insisted she would never sign a NDA.
Meanwhile Foxy addressed rumours that Jay-Z forced her to sign an NDA about her alleged relationship with the star back in October
Foxy also broke her silence on the rape accusations with a cryptic post as she shared a black screen with the word ‘WAIT’ and an embarrassed looking face to her Instagram Story
She wrote: ‘In icon business! Miss me wit tha fake news. NDA? Ain’t a MF alive that could stop my story. NDA on my sh*t gon run 100 mil.
‘Stop playin’ wit ma name dyin’ for a comment! Can’t spin me with the sucker sh*t to take Hov down. Betta ask ’bout tha cloth I’m cut from…Y’all want me to be anti-Hov so bad.’
Foxy also broke her silence on the rape accusations with a cryptic post as she shared a black screen with the word ‘WAIT’ and an embarrassed looking face to her Instagram Story.
In another post she simply shared a cold face emoji after the accusations were revealed.
Meanwhile Jay-Z also had a five year affair with Carmen Bryan who was in an on-off relationship with fellow rapper Nas at the time.
Carmen and Nas met in 1992 and welcomed their daughter Destiny in 1994.
The pair are thought to have embarked on an affair from around 1995 to 2000, suggesting the affair would have overlapped with the time Jay-Z began dating Beyonce in 2000.
While Jay-Z and Beyonce claim to have met when the former was 30 and the latter was 18, contrasting comments from the Young Forever hitmaker suggests he first met his future wife when she was 16, when he was 28 years old – even if their romantic relationship started later.
Breaking her silence on Jay-Z’s rape accusations on Monday, Carmen took to Instagram with a screenshot of the lyrics from Jay-Z’s verse on Kanye West’s track Monster
Carmen confessed about the affair to Nas after the release of Memphis Bleek and Jay-Z’s track Is That Your Chick.
She revealed that after the release of the song Nas phoned her to ask if it was about her after years of choosing not to believe rumours between the pair.
Writing in her memoir It’s No Secret, Carmen recalled the difficult conversation with Nas as she wrote: ‘Nas, it’s true…The rumors are true. I have been seeing Jay-Z.’
During the 3am phone call, Carmen explained that she and Jay-Z had been having an affair for five years after they met as friends and began an intimate relationship a year later.
In an interview with VLAD TV in 2017, Carmen also admitted she had a relationship with Jay-Z and fell pregnant with his baby which she later miscarried.
‘I believe I was three months, it was the first trimester. It wasn’t anything crazy, it wasn’t planned. It wasn’t like “Oh we are going to have this baby”.’
She also confessed she only told Jay-Z about the pregnancy after the miscarriage had happened.
Discussing Jay-Z’s song Takeover which was released in 2001 and was about Carmen, she explained: ‘I had already split up from Nas. I had shipped all my things to LA, I moved I packed Destiny and I up, we were already out.
‘Nas and I weren’t together. We were not in a relationship,’ yet things weren’t completely over as she added: ‘We were still going back and forth and seeing each other. The relationship wasn’t null and void.’
Jay-Z was romantically linked to several women before he married Beyoncé in April 2008. He was rumored to have courted R&B singer Aaliyah (seen together in May 2000) as well as others during the early aughts
Jay-Z has closely guarded his relationship history prior to Beyoncé. He was also romantically linked to various women in 2000, including actress Rosario Dawson
Breaking her silence on Jay-Z’s rape accusations on Monday, Carmen took to Instagram with a screenshot of the lyrics from Jay-Z’s verse on Kanye West’s track Monster.
The star highlighted the pointed lyrics: ‘Kill a block, I murder the avenues, I Rape and pillage your village, women and children’.
Meanwhile, fans are saying that Jay-Z’s feature in Pharrell Williams song Young Girls is a reference to Beyonce because they lyrics describe grooming a young girl.
They read: ‘Hov’ got a young girl/ Hov got a young girl/ Still not quite 21/ So high strung, such a vibrant thing/ I introduce myself, “Hi, Miss Thing” You’re 19?/ No, you’re lightning in a bottle I give you a ring tomorrow.’
Jay-Z has closely guarded his relationship history prior to Beyoncé. He was also romantically linked to various women in 2000, including actress Rosario Dawson, R&B singer Blu Cantrell, rapper Charli Baltimore and video vixen Karrin Steffans.
He was also spotted with the late singer Aaliyah, who had been victimized by R. Kelly as a minor, and died in a plane crash in 2001.