‘It wasn’t built on truth’: Jay-Z on his relationship with Beyoncé

“Our relationship wasn’t totally built on the 100 percent truth.”

In an 11-minute video released today, Jay-Z opened up about his relationship with Beyoncé and repairing it after he cheated. The rapper spoke about living out his relationship in the public eye, and how he and Beyoncé made the decision to start again and rebuild their relationship.

“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,” he said in Footnotes for 4:44. “Then we had to get to a point of ‘OK, tear this down and let’s start from the beginning… It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. “Most humans – we’re not willing to put ourselves through that. Most people give up.”

The father-of-three went on to talk about the difficulties of repairing his fractured relationship and the moment he feared he would lose his wife.

“I was on a boat and I had the best time. Then she had to leave. I was crushed. I was like, ‘Man, I don’t even feel like this. What is happening to me right now?’ “I was like, ‘Don’t go. Don’t leave.’”

The rapper addresses his infidelity in his new album and apologises to his wife and mother of his three children for years of mistreatment. In the titular track, Jay-Z says it wasn’t until his first child, Blue Ivy, was born before he realised what he was doing was wrong and made a change.