4 is Beyoncé’s lucky number. On September 4, the American star celebrates her 41st birthday. The opportunity to look back on an exceptional career, marked by hard knocks that could have destabilized the singer, present on the front of the stage for (already!) 25 years.
End of Destiny’s Child and depression
At 16, Beyoncé is part of the group Destiny’s Child managed by her father, Matthew.
From the beginning, the members of the girl band follow one another, going from a quartet to a trio, but always with its two founding pillars: cousins Beyoncé Knowles and Kelly Rowland. While the duo – quickly joined by Michelle Williams – was wildly successful, legal problems within Destiny’s Child appeared. Some people in the group wanting to oust the manager and father of the star.
At the same time, the young Beyoncé is going through a painful breakup with her boyfriend at the time, whom she dated from the age of 12 to 19. In 2001, Beyoncé then faces a deep depression which lasts two years and intervenes after the separation of the mythical girls band. Despite this complicated period, hope was reborn in 2002, when Beyoncé met a certain Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z. The couple secretly married in 2008 and became one of Hollywood’s unmissable couples.
Rumors of infidelity
In 2013, rumors swelled around Beyoncé’s discovery of Jay-Z’s alleged infidelity, which came months before their first tour together. On The Run Tour. The media suggests that the stars will divorce right after the tour, which is due to end in September 2014 in Paris. However, the couple uses this enormous bad buzz to promote the tour, but above all to unpack everything in songs. In the album Lemonadereleased in 2016 and acclaimed by critics and the public, Beyoncé warns her husband and evokes “Becky with the good hair”, in her song Sorry. This “Becky” could be someone close to the couple with whom the rapper would have cheated on the mother of their daughter, Blue Ivy, who was two years old at the time of the events.
In his album 4:44, Jay-Z half-heartedly admits his wrongdoing while rapping “Leave me alone, Becky”. In 2017, the author of Niggas in Paris will eventually reveal New York Times actually cheating on his wife:“The hardest thing is seeing the pain you’ve caused in someone’s face and then having that on your conscience. »
family brawl
Who has forgotten the images of Solange Knowles, Bey’s little sister, kicking and punching Jay-Z in the elevator of a New York hotel, in front of an impassive Beyoncé?
While the power couple’s communication has always been impeccable, in 2014, when infidelity rumors were in full swing, a private video of the trio leaked to an American tabloid. We see Solange Knowles arguing and then kicking her brother-in-law, while she is restrained by a bodyguard. The trio then exit that elevator as if nothing had happened, after the MET Gala ceremony.
Immediately, the press thinks that Solange was violent towards Jay-Z because of her supposed infidelities. But the leaked video does not contain any sound.
Solange, Beyoncé and Jay-Z had to issue a press release to extinguish the fire: “Following the public release of elevator security footage on Monday, May 5, there has been much speculation as to what triggered this unfortunate incident. But the most important thing is that our family worked on it. Jay and Solange each assume their share of responsibility for what happened. They both acknowledge their role in this private matter which unfolded publicly. They both apologized and we moved on as one family. »
Miscarriages and difficult pregnancy
“I started looking for deeper meaning when life started teaching me lessons I didn’t know I needed. Success feels different to me now. I learned that all pain and loss is actually a gift. Having miscarriages taught me that I had to mother myself before I could be someone else’s mother. Then I had Blue, and my pursuit of purpose just got so much deeper.” In 2019, Beyoncé candidly answers a question on Instagram about a trophy she didn’t win. As she had left to guess in her songs, the interpreter of Single Ladies suffered several miscarriages before giving birth to her eldest daughter, Blue Ivy, in 2012.
Jay-Z also talks about his dramas. In the single 4:44released five years ago, he says: “I apologize for all the stillbirths/Because I wasn’t present, your body didn’t accept it.”
Finally, on February 1, 2017, Beyoncé broke an Instagram record, posting a photo that had become iconic in which she announced that she was expecting twins. She will later explain that she suffered from preeclampsia and toxemia during this pregnancy. Despite this ordeal, the singer reappears a few months later in the documentary Homecoming (on Netflix), which recounts the rehearsals of his show for the Coachella festival, in 2018.