Beyoncé in the middle of controversy as Jay-Z’s sexual assault accusation highlights their large age gap: Rapper, 28, vowed to have her when they first met when she was 16, inspired by his pursuit of Aaliyah.

According to Jay Z, the only thing that truly upsets him is the potential harm to his family, amid accusations of sexual assault towards a 13-year-old girl. The allegations have stirred debates about the early days of his relationship with his spouse, Beyonce.

The 55-year-old rapper faced a civil lawsuit accusing him of assaulting a 13-year-old girl on September 7, 2000, post the MTV Video Music Awards alongside Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs. Jay Z maintains that this accusation is an extortion attempt, expressing concerns about possible troubles his children, Blue Ivy (12), and twins, Rumi and Sir (7), may face.

During the time of the alleged incident, Jay Z, aged 30, was in the initial phases of pursuing Beyonce, who was 19 at the time. Reports show him engaged in a deep conversation with the Destiny’s Child star at the launch of an Armani exhibition shortly after the referenced night.

According to Beyoncé, the pair met when she was 18 and were friends before they started dating when she was 19, but contrasting comments from the Young Forever hitmaker suggests he first met his future wife when she was 16 – and vowed that ‘she will be mine’. He was 28 years old at the time. 

Indeed, he appears in a backstage photo taken on the set of Destiny’s Child’s video for No, No, No when Beyonce was 16. 

Before they became a couple, he’d also been linked to the late R&B singer Aaliyah when she was 20 years old, and fell out with his former business partner Damon Dash for collaborating with R Kelly who married the singer when she was just 15-years-old. 

As the power couple prepare to navigate the storm amid the accusations, we take a look at the start of their romance as well as the younger women Jay has been linked to in the past. 

In the late ’90s, Jay Z was linked to actress Rosario Dawson, amid rumours they were spotted getting cosy at events. He was around 30 at the time while Rosario was around 20, although they have never confirmed the relationship.    

Beyoncé and Jay Z are widely reported to have first met somewhere between 1999 and 2000 when she was 18 and Jay was 30, with the pair being friends for around a year and a half before sparking up a romance when she was 19.

Back in 2008, she told Seventeen magazine: ‘I was 18 when we first met, 19 when we first started dating.

While in an interview with Oprah Winfrey on the Oprah Winfrey Network [OWN] in 2013, Beyoncé said of their romance: ‘We were friends first for a year and a half before we went on any dates.

‘We were on the phone for a year and a half, and that foundation is so important for a relationship. Just to have someone who you just like is so important, and someone [who] is honest.’

However, in a 2007 interview with Charlie Rose, Jay Z appeared to contradict Beyoncé’s claims when he revealed that they had met 10 years previously, making Beyoncé 16-years-old when they first crossed paths.

During an in depth chat about his American Gangster album, journalist Charlie grilled the rapper about when he first locked eyes on the singer, asking: How long have you known her?’ 

Jay Z wasn’t exactly forthcoming with his answer as he coyly responded: ‘A while, a long time.’

Not content with the answer, Charlie further pushed: ‘How long? 10 years?’ with Jay responding with a smile as he added: ‘However long she’s been recording, when I met her…’

Keen to get an exact time, Charlie further questioned the music star, remarking: ‘Don’t you remember how long it was? Was it five years ago?

‘I met her 10 years ago’ Jay said as he nervously laughed along with the host.

Questioning his reaction, Charlie asked: ‘Did you say to yourself at that time “wow!”.’

Jay Z replied that his first thoughts on Beyoncé were that she was a ‘fantastic talent’.

He further went on to confirm he met his now wife when she was 16 as he declared his love for her in a gushing Instagram post in 2013. 

Posting under the handle ‘Foundhov’, Jay shared several photos of  Beyoncé and then baby daughter Blue Ivy before demonstrating his undying love for his wife.

Captioning one particular snap with some incredibly romantic rhyming, he penned: ‘The way she has changed my life… If I didn’t have her…? Where would I be? Who would I be? Sometime I wonder if I would still be Jay-Z. It’s so surreal. 

‘First time I laid eyes on her she was 16. I had thought in my head “she will be mine”, became my best friend… 20 years old, it was time… before you knew it she made me swallow my pride and my own words bit me in the a**… “Forever mackin’ – 8 years later, married, one kid. She saved me.’

Meanwhile, a snap of Jay Z posing with Destiny’s Child back in 1998 has been uncovered, with the date revealing that Beyoncé was 16 at the time.  

The pair went on to confirm their relationship as they appeared on the cover of Variety magazine back in November 2001, with Jay Z later stating to the publication that they were ‘just beginning to try to date each other’ at the time.

He shared: ‘Well, you know, you’ve got to try first. You got to dazzle… wine and dine’

Detailing how he had to work hard to win her affections, Jay Z added: ‘She’s a charming Southern girl, you know, she’s not impressed… But I would have definitely had to be this cool.’

A year later, Beyoncé goes on to feature on Jay’s huge track 03 Bonnie & Clyde, while in 2003 he rapped on her song Crazy in Love from her debut solo album Dangerously In Love. 

The couple went on to tie the knot in a top secret wedding in April 2008.

However, their marriage has not always been plain sailing. 

In a 2017 interview with the New York Times, the rapper admitted he’d been unfaithful to Beyonce, who he’d been married to for nine years at the time. 

Jay Z started talking about the infidelity when he addressed the scars he still has from his past.

Those scars led to him push away his wife, then 36. And that led to the cheating that she addressed in her visual album Lemonade, when she sang about ‘Becky with the good hair’ in her track Sorry. 

Subsequently fashion designer Rachel Roy had to deny that she was the other woman after fans misinterpreted an Instagram post in which she joked about her hair. 

Roy, who is of Indian and Dutch ancestry, got her start in fashion interning for the fashion brand Roc-a-Wear, which was owned by Jay Z and Damon Dash. 

Rumours had also previously swirled that Jay-Z had cheated on Beyonce with the then 17-year-old Rihanna, though her former publicist later apologized and debunked the claim, saying he made up the rumor in hopes of giving Rihanna’s debut single a boost.

Addressing his infidelity, Jay Z explained: ‘You have to survive. So you go into survival mode, and when you go into survival mode, what happens? You shut down all emotions. So, even with women, you gonna shut down emotionally, so you can’t connect. … In my case, like, it’s deep. And then all the things happen from there: infidelity,’ he said.’

His admission came three years after Beyonce’s sister Solange was filmed attacking Jay Z in an elevator at the Met Gala. 

The 27-year-old was caught on surveillance camera lashing out wildly at her brother-in-law, 44, with both her arms and her legs, while her sister stood beside them looking curiously impassive. 

Solange was seen screaming at her brother-in-law member when the fight erupted was seen mouthing a diatribe at the hip hop legend.

In the footage, a man who looked to be a bodyguard tried to hold Solange back but she managed to rain blows on the rapper several times, and even hit him with her purse.

During the frenzied altercation, Jay Z grabbed her stiletto clad foot to block a kick but never attempts to retaliate. 

The singer, Beyonce and her husband releasing a joint statement at the time stressing it was a ‘private family matter’. 

While the truth about the age Jay Z met Beyoncé remains sketchy, the Run This Town hitmaker seemingly has form of taking a liking to younger women. 

Before dating Beyoncé, Jay Z was reportedly linked to the late singer Aaliyah in 1999 when she was 20 and he was 29.

Though it was never confirmed that they were dating, Jay’s business partner and Aaliyah’s later boyfriend Damon Dash revealed that the rapper was very much interested in the singer when she would have been in her late teens. 

In an interview with Page Six back in 2019, Damon told how Jay had feelings for Aaliyah and that the rapper was one of several guys that wanted to date her at the time.

Damon, who formed Roc-A-Fella Records with Jay in the 90s, noted that although Jay was interested in Aaliyah, it was himself who ultimately went on to date her, with the pair in a relationship until her shock death aged 22 in 2001.   

He said: ‘I did not mean to fall in love with Aaliyah, she was just that cool. But you know, we were both going hard … everybody was trying to get to Aaliyah — it was not just Jay.’

He went on to add: ‘I did not know Jay was trying to holler at her, but then it just happened like that. He was trying, I was trying. Everybody was trying — he was going hard.’

Dash has also hit out at the rapper for his musical collaborations with disgraced R Kelly, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for producing child porn, and three charges of enticement of minors for sex.

After producing Aaliyah’s album Age Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number, 27-year-old Kelly married the R&B singer when she was just 15 in a 10-minute ceremony held inside a Chicago hotel room.

His former tour manager had bribed a government worker with $500 to obtain a fake ID so that Kelly could marry her. 

The marriage was annulled in 1995 by Aaliyah’s parents, who did not know about the wedding before it occurred. She tragically died in a plane crash six years later at the age of 22. 

Dash said of Jay Z and R Kelly, who released a joint album The Best Of Both Worlds in 2002: ‘It’s morally wrong to do a project with someone that we know raped my girl or raped anybody for that matter.’ 

While it’s not clear if Jay Z and Aaliyah were ever romantically involved, they were pictured looking cosy at numerous events, including parties thrown by P Diddy. 

Diddy and Jay-Z became friends when they met as emerging artists on the New York hip hop scene in the ‘90s and collaborated on a track for Diddy’s debut studio album No Way Out in 1997.

Despite Jay-Z establishing his rival Roc-A-Fella Records, the competition between the two always remained friendly and Diddy said they had considered going into business together if the right opportunity arose.

The pair had also toyed with the idea of forming a super group with Usher and Pharrell Williams, but despite ‘secret meetings’ it never got off the ground.

The strength of their friendship was evident when Jay-Z made a surprise appearance at the Bad Boy Family Reunion in 2016.

Paying tribute to his friend, Diddy said: ‘You’ve been there with me through my ups and downs. Whenever I get in trouble, this is the one I call. This is my strategist right here, this my brother.’

Another telling insight came when Diddy appeared on James Corden’s carpool karaoke and said that Jay-Z, is the only person in the world other than his mother than is allowed to call him by his real name, Sean.

‘Nobody else could call me Sean. There’s not a single person, outside of my mother, that should be calling me Sean,’ he explained.