Cyrus Langhorne
Music mogul JAY-Z is keeping it 100. The hip-hop icon has come forward to address speculation and footage appearing to show him and his wife Beyoncé Knowles-Carter doing a silent protest during last Sunday's Super Bowl LIV national anthem performance.
Big Facts: This week, Young Hov appeared at Columbia University and addressed the controversy.
“It actually wasn’t. Sorry,” Jay-Z said when he was asked during a Q&A whether remaining seated was meant to convey a statement. “It really wasn’t. … It was not premeditated at all. … So we get there, and we immediately jump into artist mode … So I’m looking at the show. ‘Did our mic start? Was it too low to start?’ … ‘Is it too many speakers on the floor?’ … So the whole time we’re sitting there and we’re talking about the performance. And then right after that, Demi comes out, and we’re talking about how beautiful she looked and how she sound[ed], and what she’s going through in her life for her to be on the stage and we’re so proud of her.” (Billboard)
High-Key Details: JAY also said he would not have performed a silent protest with his daughter in attendance.
“We wouldn’t do that to Blue and put her in that position – if anyone knows Blue … if we told her we were gonna do something like that, you would have seen her tapping me a hundred times. She’s the kid that gets in the car and closes the door and says, ‘We there yet, Daddy?’ So she would say, ‘What time? Are we doing it?’” (Billboard)
Wait, There’s More: A few nights ago, NFL free agent and Black Lives Matter activist Colin Kaepernick went to his Instagram Story and wrote “I thought we were ‘past kneeling’ tho?” as a caption to footage of the Carters sitting down.
Before You Go: Initially, footage had leaked across the Internet showing the Carters sitting during the national anthem.
