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Jay-Z seemingly threw shade at his former collaborator Kanye West, now known as Ye, during a surprise performance on Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter Tour in Paris on June 22. For context, Ye had previously sparked controversy in March 2025 by questioning the mental capabilities of Jay-Z and Beyoncé's eight-year-old twins in a social media rant.
Beyoncé concluded the international leg of her tour with a three-show run at the Stade de France in Paris between June 19 and 22. During the final show, she invited her husband on stage for a special appearance, where the couple performed their joint songs, including Crazy in Love and Partition.
Jay-Z, also known as Hov, then performed N***as in Paris, the hit song from his 2011 collaborative album with Kanye West, Watch the Throne. However, he noticeably altered the lyrics of his verse, changing the line "Just might let you meet Ye" to "Just might let you meet Bey," effectively removing West's name.
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Exploring Jay-Z and Kanye West's relationship
Jay-Z and Kanye West first collaborated in 2000, when West produced a few tracks on Hov's album, The Dynasty: Roc La Familia. Since then, the two have collaborated multiple times, including the release of their sole joint album, Watch the Throne, in 2011.
However, their relationship hasn't always been smooth. During a concert in 2016, Kanye West admitted that he was "hurt" when Beyoncé didn't advocate for him to win Video of the Year at that year's VMAs. For context, West had infamously interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for Best Female Video at the 2009 VMAs, insisting that Beyoncé deserved the award more.
At that same 2016 concert, West also mentioned Jay-Z, asking the rapper to call him and "talk to [him] like a man." Jay-Z later responded to West's remarks in a 2017 interview with The New York Times, saying:
“In the long relationship, you know, hopefully when we’re 89, we look at this six months or whatever time and we laugh at that. There’s gonna be complications in the relationship that we have to get through. And the only way to get through that is we sit down and have a dialogue and say, ‘These are the things that I’m uncomfortable with. These are the things that are unacceptable to me. This is what I feel.’ I’m sure he feels that I’ve done things to him as well.”
In a 2018 interview on The Breakfast Club, Kanye West revealed he was "hurt" that the Carters skipped his wedding with Kim Kardashian in Italy in 2014. According to US Weekly, Jay-Z and Beyoncé were reportedly undergoing marital problems at the time. It was also around the time that the video of Beyoncé's sister, Solange, attacking the rapper in an elevator went viral online.
Despite their various issues, Jay-Z and Kanye West reunited in 2021 for the track Jail on Ye's album Donda. The song went on to win Best Rap Song at the Grammys. As of this article, this marked the duo's last collaboration.
Kanye West claimed he dreamed about apologizing to Jay-Z
In 2025, Kanye West went on multiple social media rants, posting a flurry of controversial tweets. In one now-deleted post from March, he claimed the Carters' twin children, Sir and Rumi, were "r*tarded."
In another post, he accused the power couple of not showing him support during his divorce from Kim Kardashian, claiming they could have done more to prevent the Kardashian clan from allegedly running him over.
“THEY COULD HAVE USED THEIR CULTURAL POSITION TO NOT JUST WATCH THE KARDASHIANS RUN ME OVER. S**T HURTS … SO F**K BOTH OF THEM CAUSE WHEN I NEEDED THEM IT WAS F**K ME,” West wrote in a post at the time.
However, the rapper apologized for his transgressions in another social media post, claiming that he was "feeling bad" about the tweet regarding the twins.
In another X post that same month, Ye revealed that he and Jay-Z allegedly fell out due to Hov's line in the song Jail, where he had rapped about Kanye West wearing the red MAGA hat, as reported by Billboard. In a now-deleted post, Ye wrote:
“Why did Jay Z have to say ‘no red hat’ on Jail. That s**t tore me to my soul. We fought about it and he told me either leave that line on there or take my verse off. Me wearing the red hat was the most stand out example of me going against ‘the program.’ Do you guys think he was instructed to say that?”
The following month, Kanye West took to X to claim he dreamed about making amends with Hov, writing:
“All my dreams have been about apologizing to Jay Z."
In other news, Jay-Z and Beyoncé celebrated their twins' eighth birthday in June during the Cowboy Carter Tour. During her June 12 show at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, Beyoncé prompted the crowd to wish the twins a happy birthday. Her daughters, Blue Ivy and Rumi, later joined her on stage for the song Protector.
