At the time she was working on her 2006 album B’Day, which featured “Irreplaceable” and would tease the ultra-independent, nobody-will-ever-hold-me-down side of Beyoncé who would have her formal coming-out party on 2008’s I Am… Sasha Fierce. Throughout her solo career she’s also explored the enjoyment she’s found in treating her man like a king. 2013’s Beyoncé would in turn make marriage sound as hot as any courtship, with the artist detailing more explicitly than ever what sort of activities helped keep the romance alive.
“I know I’m stronger in the songs than I really am,” she mused to Marie Claire in 2009. “Sometimes I need to hear it myself. We all need to hear those empowering songs to remind us.”
But in 2005, she told Vanity Fair about the juxtaposition of themes in her music, “I grew up. I feel it’s still very strong, because in order to be a strong woman, you have to have a strong man. There’s nothing wrong with women doing that for their man if their man deserves it and he does the same for you.”
In the absence of many details to go on, there was speculation on any given day that Bey and Jay were engaged, secretly married or possibly expecting.
At the end of the day, “there’s no way I can know every person in the world, and people just know you from what they read,” Beyoncé concluded. “When people meet me, they say they think I’m so normal…If someone says I’m married or engaged and I’m not, I don’t pay attention to it. But when someone says something about my family, I don’t like that.”
In 2007, Jay-Z ducked all girlfriend questions during a Rolling Stone interview, only saying, “It’s difficult enough to have a relationship with your relatives involved. To have millions of people involved—that’s messed up!”
