Final week, a 2005 clip from the “Tyra Banks Show” started to realize traction on Reddit. Within the clip, a teenaged Rihanna explains to Banks how she was signed to Def Jam Data in 2005 on the age of 16. On the time, Jay-Z was president and CEO of the music label.
Within the clip, Rihanna recalled auditioning for the rapper and Def Jam chairman Antonio “L.A.” Reid on the label’s places of work by singing “Pon de Replay” — and famous that after performing what could be her breakout hit, the boys had been “interested” in signing her.
New York Every day Information Archive by way of Getty Pictures
“But then [Jay-Z] said something about a window and a door?” Banks mentioned.
“Oh, then he said,” Rihanna started with a nervous giggle, “then he said there are two ways to leave here: Either through the door with the deal signed or through this window, and we’re on the 29th floor.”
“So you were like, ‘Where’s the pen! Where’s the paper! I’m signing!’” Banks responded.
However, papers weren’t signed immediately, as Banks imagined.
Bennett Raglin by way of Getty Pictures
Two years later, the “Umbrella” singer advised a comparable story to The Guardian, through which she added that the oldsters at Def Jam “locked me into the office — till 3am” in a bid to get her to signal.
Jay-Z corroborated Rihanna’s declare about how she signed Def Jam’s contract at 3 a.m. throughout an interview with former rapper and MTV VJ Sway within the early aughts.
Jay-Z advised Sway that they “signed her that night. We didn’t let her leave the office. Three in the morning is when that contract got signed.”
Though Rihanna has described Jay-Z as being her mentor — and even left Def Jam in 2014 to work together with his label Roc Nation — the joke Jay-Z made to Rihanna in 2005 has taken on a extra sinister tone in 2024.
Earlier this month, Jay-Z was accused of raping a 13-year-old woman in an amended lawsuit from October. The plaintiff, who filed as “Jane Doe,” revised her lawsuit in opposition to Sean “Diddy” Combs to incorporate the “Big Pimpin’” rapper. Within the go well with, the then-preteen alleges that in a 2000 home celebration after the MTV Video Music Awards, the 2 males drugged her and took turns raping her whereas an unnamed feminine celeb watched.
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Earlier this month, Bryana “Bana” Bongolan filed a lawsuit in opposition to Combs through which she accused Combs of dangling her from a 17-floor balcony in 2016 — which sounds harking back to the joke Jay-Z made to Rihanna about throwing her out a Twenty ninth-floor window.
HuffPost has reached out to Jay-Z and Rihanna for remark in regards to the joke, however didn’t obtain an instantaneous response.
