Their 2003 hit "Baby Boy" was glued to the No. 1 spot on the charts for nine weeks and has become a classic party song worldwide. Yet, ever since the single first hit airwaves, Beyoncé and Sean Paul have been the subject of rumors surrounding their collaboration. For nearly two decades there has been gossip about Jay-Z not approving of his then-girlfriend's artistic pairing with the Jamaican Dancehall singer-rapper, most notably because Paul and Bey didn't appear on set together in the music video, and last month, fuel was added to the rumor-mill-fire after Sean Paul appeared on a Jamaican radio station.
During his interview, the radio host reportedly stated that he believed Jay-Z was jealous at the time and didn't want Beyoncé around Sean Paul. The singer is reported as agreeing with the host, but he exclusively spoke with us recently and denied he ever said such a thing. Sean Paul detailed what happened and why he continues to face the same gossip decades later, even though he's never said anything negative about Jay-Z or Beyoncé.
"It was a radio show here in Jamaica and I get this regularly. When I go to Texas, also, radio shows there, I don’t know what it is, people are like, ‘So tell me…’ and it gets to that part in that interview where they're like, ‘What happened with you and Beyoncé?’ Nothing really happened. The hit song was dope," said Paul. "You know, some of them made up their own mind. That's the whatever. Sometimes with interviews, you can say, ‘I'd rather not speak about it,’ but then, people would think that something was going on. So, I was trying to defend it like, ‘Hey nah, but weird things did happen, that's probably why there were rumors,' but people leave out 'that's probably why there were rumors' part."
"There were weird things that happened on stage with our performance, with the [music] video. I know a headline said that ‘oh, Jay-Z didn’t want me there.’ It had nothing to do with him as far as I'm concerned," Sean Paul explained. "[Beyoncé's] her own artist that was managed by her own manager. They were going out at the time. They weren't married yet. I don't think he would have influenced whatever her vision was. She's a very determined person. She's very precise with her thoughts and her movements and she works very hard. It was probably her vision."
"So, what I did speak about in that interview was that there were some weird things that happened and that's probably why people had rumors about it because a couple of times while on stage, we tried to perform [‘Baby Boy’] properly. There were problems with the ProTools, which doesn't usually happen. There was problems with my mic in one performance in Germany. That’s probably why people started talking about [it] and then this guy did the same thing back to me. So, hey, big up to him," he said with a chuckle, adding that the host got his viral moment.
Make sure to read our full interview with the Dancehall icon as he speaks about mending divisions in the genre and what fans can expect from his two new albums: "Sean Paul Speaks On Beyoncé-Jay-Z Rumors, Dancehall's Clash Culture, & New Album."