Jay-Z Says His Marriage to Beyoncé Wasn’t ‘Totally Built’ on the Truth

Jay-Z got extremely candid about his marriage to Beyoncé on his latest album, 4:44, and the rapper is opening up once again on the album’s Footnotes for ‘4:44,’ in which he said that the pair’s union was not “totally built” on the truth.

“This is my real life. I just ran into this place and we built this big, beautiful mansion of a relationship that wasn’t totally built on the 100 percent truth and it starts cracking. Things start happening that the public can see,” the rapper says in the confessional, released on Tidal on Monday.

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“Then we had to get to a point of ‘Okay, tear this down and let’s start from the beginning … It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Jay-Z also shared a memory from a vacation with Beyoncé during which he begged her not to leave.

“I was on a boat, and I had the best time,” he said. “I was like, ‘Man, this is great.’ Then she had to leave. I was, like, crushed. ‘Man, I don’t even feel like this. What is happening to my body right now?’ I don’t even feel like this. Did I just say, ‘Don’t leave?’”

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The rapper added that his wife had listened to the entirety of 4:44 long before it was released.

“We’ve been in that space where we just got to the place that in order for this to work, it can’t be fake—not once,” he explained. “I’m not saying it wasn’t uncomfortable because obviously it was, but because we’ve been doing it for so long it was less uncomfortable.”