Beyonce and Jay Z ‘broke up for a YEAR’ when those Rihanna cheating rumours came out

In the course of their seven-year marriage, Beyonce and Jay Z have battled multiple rumours about their relationship – from their baby daughter Blue Ivy being carried by a surrogate, to Jay cheating on Bey with his musical protégée Rihanna.

But a new unofficial biography of Beyonce claims to have uncovered the truth about that speculation – and reckons it all started as a publicity stunt gone wrong.

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J Randy Taraborrelli’s Becoming Beyonce: The Untold Story claims the pair broke up for a year in 2005 because Bey’s work schedule and her perfectionism was becoming too much for them both to handle, so she asked her then-boyfriend for a break.

During their time apart, stories started appearing in the press about an up-and-coming singer called Rihanna, who was signed to Jay’s record label Def Jam.

The book quotes publicist Jonathan Hay as saying he was actually the first one to start the rumours about Jay and Rihanna – but he didn’t realise it would become such a massive story.

“I started sending him [Jay] text messages saying, ‘Dude! Two sentences about Rihanna. That’s all I need.’ He’d write back: ‘Hit me up later.’ I would do so, but… still nothing,” he said.

“So, out of frustration and in an effort to generate some interest, I began to plant stories in the press that Jay and Rihanna were having a hot romance, and that Beyonce was very jealous and pissed off about it.”

WHAT. THIS IS MAD.

But Jay had no response to the rumours until he realised Jonathan had started them.

“Jay called me and said, ‘Dude! She’s a minor!’ It was true – Rihanna was only 17, that hadn’t even occurred to me,” Jonathan added.

So did Jay and Rihanna actually have an affair? According to Jonathan, “absolutely not” – it was “all a stunt”.

“Am I proud of it? No. There was no integrity to it at all. Did it work? Hell yeah, it worked. It totally launched Rihanna’s career,” the publicist added in the book.

Pick up this week’s heat for an exclusive preview of Becoming Beyonce: The Untold Story.