Pop Culture

Kelly: Beyoncé reveals personal information on her own terms

Tabloids make a killing from speculation on the future of celebrity couples’ relationships. And their newest victim? Beyoncé and Jay Z.

And while the drama of the “elevator incident” was a crack in the facade of the Carters’ familial bliss, speculators should be the one to “call it quits.” Because as the singer’s past has shown, Beyoncé is one of the few stars to have mastered the art of avoiding the spotlight of celebrity gossip. The chance that details about Beyoncé’s private life will be outed are slim, as she calls the shots as to how –and what– information is revealed to the public.

When TMZ published the “elevator incident” video this summer, it sent a shockwave through the public opinion of the dynamic duo. A grainy security camera exposed that on the night of the Met Gala, Beyoncé’s sister Solange attacked Jay-Z while Beyoncé stood in the background.

Suddenly the totem of true love in Hollywood was subjected to the guesswork of every eye in the peanut gallery. This news was surprising to many, since throughout their twelve-year relationship Bey and Jay have, for the most part, escaped controversy. This is largely due to the fact that Beyoncé is a publicity master mind and has always been able to control exactly what and when the public knew about her private life.

From the very beginning of their relationship when Jay Z released “03 Bonnie and Clyde” in the fall of 2002, Beyoncé coyly crooned, “I promise I’ll give my life, my love, and my trust if you was my boyfriend.” While the power couple was regularly photographed together and featured on each other’s tracks they never publicly addressed their relationship status until 2005.



When the couple married in 2008 we didn’t find out until months after. It wasn’t until four years later that the couple released images of their wedding at the first stop of their “On the Run” tour.

The news of Beyoncé’s pregnancy was revealed in a memorable MTV Video Music Award performance. After singing  “Love on Top” she dropped the mic, unbuttoned her purple sequined blazer, and rubbed her growing baby bump in all its grandeur.

Beyoncé also created two documentaries, “The Year of 4” and “Life is but a Dream.” They addressed her professional split from her father who had been the star’s manager since the onset of her career, and the pressure on the new mother to stay on top respectively. Beyoncé also revealed in the most intimate moment of “Life is but a Dream,” that she had suffered a miscarriage.

Beyoncé has addressed the elevator incident in her own way. In her “***Flawless” remix featuring Nicki Minaj, she sings, “we escalate up in this b**** like elevators, of course sometimes s*** goes down when it’s a billion dollars in the elevator.”

Due to the highly private matter of divorce and considering the couple’s secretive past there is little chance that anyone but the couple knows what the future holds. All of the people speculating should call it quits.

If Beyonce decides that she wants to share her perspective on the divorce rumors, my bet is that it will be at her MTV VMA performance on August 24.

If not, we should all accept that this woman knows how to keep a secret in Hollywood.

Erin G. Kelly is a senior broadcast and digital journalism major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at egkelly@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @egknew.





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