The rumors have resurfaced and the former publicist has been forced to again set the record straight...
From All Hip Hop
Speaking to AllHipHop, Jonathan Hay explained what was going through his head when he decided to drum up the rumor about Rihanna and JAY-Z’s affair. As he puts it, he was angry with JAY-Z at the time and in no way, shape or form was concerned with the repercussions.
“When I executed this controversial publicity and marketing campaign for Rihanna’s debut single, she was an unknown artist and I was hungry for a hit, and I knew that ‘Pon de Replay’ was a special song,” he tells us. “I had direct access to JAY-Z back then from working with Amil, the female rap artist on a couple of JAY-Z’s biggest hit records at the time.
“Industry executive Kevin Skinner, who was in a high-profile legal battle with Whitney Houston, was the person who introduced me to the debut Rihanna project and to one of the ‘Pon de Replay’ producers. I was hired to promote ‘Pon de Replay’ and I wrote Rihanna’s first press release. I devised a plan to pitch Rihanna as JAY-Z’s latest protégé on Def Jam to MTV News. I reached out to my contact at MTV and she published a small news item on Rihanna on March 17, 2005, which was RiRi’s first big press.”
But Hay was baffled by the lack of response. MTV, which was hugely influential back then, failed to spark any more press.
“This initial trigger set everything in motion, and I tried to utilize the MTV press link to promote ‘Pon de Replay’ to other media sources,” he continues. “There was nobody bigger than MTV at that time, but even still, no other press was picking up the ‘Pon de Replay’ story and I was striking out left and right.
“I started to get desperate and I was so angry at JAY-Z as he was more focused on Teairra Marí and there was all this talk that he was pursuing a rapper named Lady Sovereign, who he ended up signing months later. Not to mention, JAY-Z was constantly dissing Amil, who had quit the music industry and was living in North Carolina at the time raising her children.
“So I was like f### JAY-Z, since he won’t give us any attention and he’s being disrespectful to Amil, who was a single mother. I’m going to get his attention and be disrespectful back to JAY-Z, as Rihanna was the best thing on Def Jam by far. I thought JAY-Z was a dirtbag, so I put out the story that JAY-Z was in a love triangle with Rihanna and Beyoncé—and that caught fire, sparked conversation, increased radio airplay, press coverage and other forms of attention. I was in an unapologetic ‘by any means necessary’ state of mind.”
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