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Sean Paul's claim to fame was his collaboration with Beyonce in 2003 as they released a massive hit, Baby Boy. However, the duo could only perform the song together three times and there were rampant rumors that Jay-Z stopped Sean Paul from performing the song with Queen Bey at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2003.
However, the No Lie rapper turned down the allegations and claimed that Jay-Z was an 'intuitive' person and would not do something like that. In a May 2022 interview with the Daily Beast, he commented:
"I mean… he’s [Jay-Z] an icon. Even at that time, Roc-A-Wear was already worth $80 million. He was a very intuitive person, so he would have never been like, “I got to fight this like that.” You know?"
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In fact, the record label first declared to Sean Paul that he would not perform the song with Beyonce at the 2003 MTV VMAs. The rapper also narrated his experience of attending the awards and watching Beyonce perform their song while he was sitting with the audience.
Sean Paul also recalled Paris Hilton sitting next to him at that time and asking why he wasn't there with Queen Bey on the stage.
However, Sean Paul also got to bail on her the next day. The singers were supposed to perform at Washington the next day and they were scheduled to perform Baby Boy for Beyonce's father.
"I went there, did my show, and then waited around for a while. And I got pissed off. They were like “There are 3,000 influential people waiting out there for you to do it.” And I was like, “There were 50 million people watching the VMAs. I’m not doing it.” And I left. That was the last time we did the show," narrated Sean.
Mysterious things happened when Sean Paul performed Baby Boy with Beyonce
Beyonce and Sean Paul were slated to perform Bad Boy at the 2003 Reggae Sumfest in Los Angeles when an audio malfunction ruined the show. As Sean started singing his lines, his mic mysteriously went off.
"We do it and I run out there and the crowd goes wild, but after a while it seems like I lost their energy. And it’s weird because I was going wild out there. When the song finished, I came backstage and my own band was all pissed off, like “Man, that’s f*cked up. You heard yourself? We couldn’t hear you in the crowd. Your mic was off.” I was like, “How the f*ck did that happen?”" recalled the rapper.
Something similar happened when they performed the song in Scotland. After a perfect rehearsal session, the song's track got stuck playing Beyonce's hook over and over again when Sean's track was supposed to play. However, Sean Paul didn't blame Jay-Z because 'he wasn't even there' according to the 51-year-old.
Sean Paul revealed that Jay-Z was never comfortable with him and Beyonce being around each other
In a January 2021 interview with a Jamaican radio station, Sean Paul revealed that Jay-Z was uncomfortable with Beyonce being around the rapper's presence.
In his Jamaican patois, he explained:
“Yuh si weh you seh? You neva feel comfortable. Me neva feel comfortable needa, but mi jus use my diplomacy all di while an guh roun any likkle obstacle weh me have inna life.”
Baby Boy has amassed a whopping 210 million views so far. According to Sean Paul, the scenes he shared with Beyonce in the four-minute video implored people back in Jamaica to think that something was going on between the two.
However, the rapper explained that he and the Cowboy Carter artist were never involved romantically. In the Daily Beast interview, when asked if they had been intimate, he commented:
"Nah! I wish I did! She’s beautiful."
The rapper recalled the director calling him before the day of the shoot and explaining that he would only be featured in dream sequences and that Beyonce's character would think about Sean's character every night.
Although the two didn't shoot a single scene together, their chemistry was shown through two parallel sequences.
The song's record label won Publisher of the Year for Baby Boy at the 2005 ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Songwriter Scott Storch won Songwriter of the Year at the same event.
