Jay-Z Talks Fighting For His Marriage With Beyonce

By Dianne Gebauer/Jan. 28, 2018 2:46 pm EST

The hip hop star spoke candidly about making his relationship work.

On Saturday, Jan. 27, 2018, Jay-Z opened up about how he fought for his marriage with Beyoncé during an appearance on The Van Jones Show.

"You can be in love, and you can love someone, but if you haven't experienced love and you don't understand it, and you don't have the tools to move forward, then you're going to have complications," the 48-year-old rapper, who called Beyoncé his "soulmate" and "the person I love," began.

After explaining that couples can either choose to "address [their problems] or pretend until it blows up at some point," Jay-Z said, "For us, we chose to fight for our love, for our family. To give our kids a different outcome. To break that cycle for black men and women."

He added, "We were never a celebrity couple. We were a couple who just happened to be celebrities. We are real people."

Luckily, the famous pair have been able to work through their problems. However, the Tidal mogul explained that the strongest apology is actually "changed behavior."

"You have to acknowledge the pain," he continued. "You have to let that person have their say. You have to get on the floor, get on the mattress, and you have to really work through it and really be honest, no matter how many times. It takes a while. It's hard. It's difficult to hear, it's difficult to say, it's difficult to listen to that sort of pain. You just have to be strong enough. You have to be strong enough to go through that — cause on the other side it's beautiful."

As Nicki Swift previously reported, Jay-Z opened up about his marital problems and infidelity in the mini-documentary for his 2017 album, 4:44. "I just ran into this place and we built this big, beautiful mansion of a relationship that wasn't totally built on the 100 percent truth," he said in Footnotes for 4:44. "Then it starts cracking, and then things start happening that the public can see ... We had to go a point and be like, 'Tear this down,' and then start from the beginning."