It’s Beyoncé vs. Rihanna 2.0 as the artists’ respective ‘teams’ have declared war on each other. Well, sort of.
Team Bey has recently come out with the biography “Becoming Beyoncé” by R. Randy Taraborrelli who, in one of the book’s chapters, recalled a former publicist leaking a Jay Z affair to create publicity for the then-newbie Rihanna.
“I was working for Vada Nobles, who wrote and produced ‘Pon de Replay’ . . . It was my job to make sure she hit . . . In an effort to generate some interest . . . I began to plant . . . stories that Jay and Rihanna were having a hot romance,” quoted Taraborrelli of Jonathan Hay.
This has angered Team Rihanna, who is calling Hay’s purported ruse, much like the rumored affair, a hoax. RiRi’s legal reps are also debunking any connection, stating that “Hay was never Rihanna’s publicist or had any personal or professional relationship with her.”
To Jonathan’s credit, he clarified to Page Six that “[he] wasn’t Rihanna’s publicist” but “was [the] publicist for her first single. She didn’t have a publicist . . . It was back in the day, she was nobody.” Furthermore, Hay is distancing himself from the controversy with the statement, “I haven’t read the book and I don’t know what it says”, adding that he’s busy with music projects and that “all this other gossip is nonsense.”
