<p id=”par-1_59″><a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/tag/beyonce/”>Beyoncé</a> wasn’t <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/jay-z-admitted-beyonce-easy-impress-met.html/”>as easily impressed</a> as other women might be when she began dating Jay-Z. Still, the music mogul was able to offer what other dating prospects couldn’t, convincing the Grammy winner that he was her soulmate. It was a good thing Jay-Z came along when he did since the dating scene looked very bleak for a younger Beyoncé.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-beyonce-once-revealed-how-hard-dating-was-before-her-relationship-with-jay-z”>Beyoncé once revealed how hard dating was before her relationship with Jay-Z</h2>
<figure class=”wp-block-image size-full” id=”emb-1″><img decoding=”async” src=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Jay-Z-Beyonce.webp?strip=all&quality=80″ alt=”Jay-Z and Beyoncé sitting at the Grammy Awards in February 2025. Jay-Z is wearing a suit and Beyoncé is wearing a gold dress and feather jacket.” class=”wp-image-3771332″><figcaption class=”wp-element-caption”>Jay-Z and Beyoncé at the 67th Annual GRAMMY Awards | Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy</figcaption></figure>
<p id=”par-2_60″>Little is known about Beyoncé’s dating history before her romance with Jay-Z. On the surface, it seemed she barely dated at all. Before falling for the Brooklyn native, her last confirmed relationship was with her high school sweetheart Lyndall Locke. Beyoncé started dating Locke when she was only 12 years old, while Locke was two years older than her. </p>
<p id=”par-3_62″>According to <a href=”https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3288063/My-10-year-affair-Beyonc-teenage-control-freak-Pushed-controlling-father-singer-s-love-reveals-Bey-diva-13.html” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Daily Mail</a>, the pair saw each other on and off for a decade before they split for good. Locke felt the writing was on the wall for their relationship <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/beyonces-ex-boyfriend-says-losing-her-to-jay-z-is-still-his-biggest-regret.html/”>when Jay-Z came into the picture</a>. “She started mentioning this other guy Jay-Z a lot, casually dropping his name,” Locke recalled. “I felt I was being edged out of her life.”</p>
<p id=”par-4_59″>Beyoncé was rumored to have dated a few other men, too, but nothing was ever confirmed. According to <a href=”https://www.ranker.com/list/beyonce-knowles_-loves-and-hookups/celebrityhookups” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Ranker</a>, she may have <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/did-beyonce-secretly-date-marques-houston.html/”>secretly dated Marquis Houston</a>, Mos Def, and Justin Timberlake. But the “Crazy in Love” singer wasn’t single due to a lack of effort on her part. Beyoncé’s professional success made her want to settle down even more.</p>
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<p id=”par-5_79″>“The more successful I get, the more I want a boyfriend,” she said in an <a href=”https://limbruglia.tistory.com/322″>interview</a>. “But it’s hard. Where am I going to meet somebody? Maybe at an awards show? Or on tour? But we don’t see anybody consistently. We are all over the world, so if we do meet somebody, we can’t see him again until six months later. So unless you have a serious connection with somebody the first time you meet them, it doesn’t happen.”</p>
<p id=”par-6_29″>She wasn’t opposed to finding a potential partner at clubs with her Destiny’s Child bandmates. But going clubbing presented its own set of challenges thanks to their star power.</p>
<p id=”par-7_42″>“And what do we do but sit there and look depressed the whole time,” she added. “We look so unhappy and bored, no one is ever going to come up to us. And because of security, nobody can to get us anyway.”</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-how-jay-z-claimed-he-charmed-beyonce”>How Jay-Z claimed he charmed Beyonce</h2>
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<div class=”related-article related-article–simple”>
<span class=”related-article-flag”>Related</span>
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<a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/kanye-west-said-beyonce-let-jay-z-cheat.html/”>
Kanye West Once Said Beyoncé Should Let Jay-Z Cheat on Her </a>
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<p id=”par-8_25″>At one point, Beyoncé’s good friends tried to connect her with other potential suitors. But that only made the “Ring the Alarm” artist feel worse.</p>
<p id=”par-9_46″>“Mike Myers’ wife is trying to hook me up,” she said. “She’s like, ‘We’re going to find you a boyfriend by the end of the movie! Everybody is trying to hook me up. It makes you feel real desperate. It’s like, ‘No, it’s okay, it’s okay!’”</p>
<p id=”par-10_97″>But she didn’t need her friends and co-stars to play matchmaker for long. She was already familiar with the person she’d spend the rest of her life with. Beyoncé and Jay-Z have <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/jay-z-beyonces-different-stories-met-raise-questions-rape-allegations.html/”>different stories about how they met</a>, but it’s believed they first crossed paths between 1999 and 2000. They started off getting to know each other as friends, then they tried to date in 2000. Things eventually grew serious for the couple before they became a serious item. According to Jay-Z, he succeeded where others had failed with Beyoncé by simply giving her a good time.</p>
<p id=”par-11_28″> “Well, you know, you’ve got to try first. You got to dazzle … wine and dine,” he once told <em>Vanity Fair </em>(via <a href=”https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jay-z-talks-drugs-beyonce-and-blue-ivy-being-his-biggest-fan/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>CBS News</a>) about wooing his wife.</p>
<p id=”par-12_40″>He believed he would’ve been able to charm Beyoncé even if he was a gas attendant instead of one of the biggest rappers in the world. More than anything, Jay-Z felt he was simply cool enough to attract the singer.</p>
<p id=”par-13_30″>“But she’s a charming Southern girl, you know, she’s not impressed…. But I would have definitely had to be this cool,” he said about dating Beyoncé as an average Joe.</p>