Jay-Z is David Letterman’s ‘Next Guest’ on his Netflix talk show. (Photo: Joe Pugliese/Netflix)
When it was announced that Jay-Z would appear on David Letterman’s Netflix venture My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, a curiosity naturally arose: Would the two talk about infidelity?
Letterman, at the helm of the Late Show in 2009, revealed to viewers that he was being blackmailed by someone who knew he had sex with female staffers. Days later, he apologized to his wife and mother to his now 14-year-old son Harry, Regina Lasko, for the hurt he had caused.
Suspicions that Jay-Z has strayed during his marriage to Beyoncé grew after the Queen Bey dropped Lemonade in 2016 with songs seemingly about working through an affair. The rapper copped to “infidelity” in an interview with The New York Times’ T Magazine published in November.
Early in their Next Guest conversation, Letterman joked that Jay-Z was his “twin,” but it isn’t until their chat nears its end that the host brings up their overlapping transgression.
“I did something that I had no business doing, and I regret it, and since then I have tried to acknowledge that mistake and be a better person,” Letterman says, without giving specifics of the incident. “You can only stop behavior that was hurting people and apologize for it and try to continue to be a better person.”
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Entertainers, Jay-Z and David Letterman. (Photo: Joe Pugliese/Netflix)
“I like to think — and maybe this is flattery that I can’t afford — that, I’m a better person, not the person that caused so much pain for so many people,” the Mark Twain prize recipient continued. “But, at the time, the pain that I caused myself was the fear that I had blown up my family, that I was gonna be in a situation where I would see my son every two weeks, my wife would be dating Scott, the dentist from New Jersey.”
“I would go to therapy, and I would talk to people about this situation and they would tell me various things to just get me out of the office, but I never talked to a person who had had been in that situation,” Letterman added. “I’m wondering if this rings a bell with you, the pain of ‘Have I done something now to blow up my family?’ ”
For Jay-Z, it did.
“Yeah,” the 4:44 artist responded. “For a lot of us we don’t have — especially where I grew up and men in general — we don’t have emotional queues from when we’re young. Our emotional queue is ‘Be a man, stand-up, don’t cry.’ “
Referencing lyrics from 2001’s Song Cry, Jay-Z said, “The idea of I will never, can’t see it coming down my eyes, but I’ve gotta make the song cry, is my way of saying I want to cry, I want to be open, I want to have the emotional tools that it takes to keep my family together.
“Much like you, I have a beautiful wife who is understanding and knew that I’m not the worst of what I’ve done,” he continued. “We did the hard work of going to therapy, and really we love each other so, we really put in the work, and for years. This music that I’m making now is a result of things that happened already and, like you, I like to believe that we’re in a better place today but still working and communicating and growing.
“I’m proud of the father and the husband that I am today because of all the work that was done,” he said in conclusion.
Jay-Z’s episode of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction is available for streaming now on Netflix.
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