‘Celebrity B”: Who was Jay-Z dating in 2000? His past partners confirmed

Content warning: This article mentions child sex abuse and sexual assault. Please take care while reading.

New Jay-Z just dropped — unfortunately, it’s not an album; Jay’s named in a Diddy civil suit. For months, many speculated that Jay, and by extension, his wife, Beyoncé, is implicated in Diddy’s sex crimes. Now, could there be proof?

A few weeks ago, news broke that Jay’s name was added to a Sean “Diddy” Combs sex abuse civil suit filed last October. Sunday, Jay-Z responded in an online statement to the rape accusations.

According to the suit, Jay-Z and Diddy, currently behind bars in New York on an avalanche of sexual abuse-related charges, raped an unnamed defendant, a then 13-year-old girl called “Jane Doe” in 2000 at an MTV VMA after party. In a heated social media statement, Jay denied the accusations.

As egregious as those allegations are, one small detail in the civil suit, which now names Jay-Z, legal name Shawn Corey Carter, is that the legal action also says an unnamed female celebrity called “Celebrity B” was present and watched the assault, suggesting, in the minds of some, that person could be Beyoncé.

Bey has not commented on her husband’s allegations. But were Jay and Beyoncé even together in 2000? Here’s a closer look.

Jay and Beyoncé started dating in 2000

While the woman mentioned in the Diddy-Jay-Z civil suit could be Beyoncé, Bey has not commented on her husband’s fresh allegations. So far, the evidence Bey is “Celebrity B” is circumstantial at best. But Jay and Bey started dating in 2000, when the former Destiny’s Child singer was 19. Beyoncé told Oprah the couple had been friends for about a year-and-a-half before they made things official.

“We were friends for a year and a half before we went on any dates,” Beyoncé told Oprah Winfrey in 2003 about her early days with the Roc-A-Fella Records founder.

“We were on the phone for a year and a half, and that foundation is so important for a relationship. Just to have someone who you just like, is so important, and someone [who] is honest.”

According to NBC News, Beyoncé also told Seventeen, “I was 18 when we first met, 19 when we first started dating.”

As for Jay, he rapped on his 2018 track, “713,” off his 2018 album, Everything is Love, with Beyoncé, about meeting her in March 2000, but they didn’t see each other again for two years. The 2000 VMAs aired in September.

Jay’s rumored relationship with Rosario Dawson

Another possible “Celebrity B” suspect is actress Rosario Dawson — if the female “Celebrity B” is connected to Jay, which is unconfirmed. Jay-Z and Dawson are rumored to have dated around that same time, but neither Jay nor Dawson have ever confirmed the relationship.

Rapper Foxy Brown is also rumored to have dated Jay-Z when she was a teenager, and he’s confirmed to have dated Aaliyah, Rachel Roy, and author Karrine Steffans.

All of whom were teenagers when they met Jay. Roy is even said to be the inspiration behind “Becky with the good hair,” from Beyoncé’s Lemonade hit “Sorry.”

The Jay-Z and Diddy civil suit will create further speculation that Beyoncé could be involved, but although the timelines match up, and it’s shocking enough that any female “Celebrity B” was allegedly present when it happened, there’s still a lot of uncertainty surrounding who that person may have been.

In his response, Jay called the Diddy accusations “heinous” and added, “My wife and I will have to sit our children down,” referring to Beyoncé and their family, “one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims, and explain the cruelty and greed of people.”

If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.