The Truth Beyonce Revealed About Her Life In Lemonade

Beyoncé slayed the world with her 2016 visual album Lemonade, and she also slayed side chicks and Jay Z's hopes of ever getting away with messing around again. (Seriously though, who cheats on Beyonce?) The chart-topping project and Grammy-winning project, which included a film released on HBO, has certainly made its mark on the music industry, but its reach extends far beyond album sales. As The Washington Post wrote, Beyoncé's work "felt both like a seismic cultural event and a searingly intimate diary." 

Here's what we can surmise about the Beyoncé's family history, her relationship with her husband, and the potential other lady or ladies entwined in her lyrics.

Bad move, Hova. In case there was any doubt that Lemonade deals at least in part with her own marriage to Jay Z, Mrs. Carter seems to confirm it by referencing the miscarriage they suffered before having Blue Ivy in a spoken-word interlude: "So what are you going to say at my funeral now that you've killed me? Here lies the body of the love of my life whose heart I broke without a gun to my head. Here lies the mother of my children both living and dead." In the track "Sorry," Bey spits, "Big homie better grow up." Think back to "Crazy in Love" Let's remember, Jay calls himself "Big homie" in his rap on Bey's breakout solo song.

That said, there is also evidence (besides, well, the fact that they're still together) that Bey forgave her husband. In "Sandcastles," Beyoncé sings alone in a room with a piano, "And your heart is broken cause I walked away. Show me your scars and I won't walk away. And I know I promised that I couldn't stay, baby. Every promise don't work out that way." During the video, Jay Z enters. It's a subtle message, but a strong one. So who did he stupidly maybe hook up with?

Furious members of the Beyhive accused Jay Z's other protege, Rita Ora, of being the "Becky with the good hair" mentioned in Beyoncé's powerful track, "Sorry." Why? 

On April 21, 2016, Ora posted photos on Instagram wearing a bra with lemons on it and a necklace that appears to have a "J" charm. Whether Ora was being cheeky or not, that timing is both suspicious and terrible. She promptly deleted the photos when the Hive began to attack, but screenshots are forever.

Remember when Beyoncé's sister, Solange, went HAM on Jay Z in an elevator at a Met Gala afterparty in 2014? Us Weekly reports that Solange first flipped out on fashion designer Rachel Roy before attacking Jay Z because the pair supposedly got a bit too close at the party. While everyone refused to comment at the time about the cause of the altercation, Roy may have outed herself on Instagram as the "Becky with the good hair" from "Sorry." In a now-deleted post from the morning after Lemonade's release, Roy taunted, "Good hair, don't care." The Beyhive immediately stung her, even altering her Wikipedia page to say that she died under a lemonade stand.

After dealing with Queen Bey's rabidly loyal subjects for a while, Roy tweeted, "I respect love, marriages, families and strength. What shouldn't be tolerated by anyone, no matter what, is bullying, of any kind." Note that she didn't necessarily deny any involvement? Maybe the stress of being a side chick is what led her to cancel public appearances for a "personal emergency."

In "Daddy Lessons," Beyoncé touches on her own father's tumultuous relationship with her mother, Tina Knowles. (The Daily Mail reports that Tina and Mathew Knowles divorced in 2011 after Mathew fathered a child with another woman.) In the song, Beyoncé sings, "My daddy warned me about men like you. He said, 'Baby girl, he's playing you...Cause when trouble comes in town, Men like me come around.'" Beyonce may be referencing that her dad taught her how to avoid cheaters because, well, it takes one to know one, right?

In another spoken segment, Beyoncé laments, "Mother dearest, let me inherit the earth. Teach me how to make him beg. Let me make up for the years he made you wait. Did he bend your reflection? Did he make you forget your own name? Did he convince you he was a god? Did you get on your knees daily? Did his eyes close like doors? Are you a slave to the back of his head? Am I talking about your husband or your father?"

In a separate interlude, Beyoncé says, "You remind me of my father, A magician. Able to exist in two places at once. In the tradition of men in my blood, you come home at 3 a.m. and lie to me. What are you hiding?"

Beyoncé hints that infidelity may be a family curse going back generations. In one interlude, she says, "The past and the future merge to meet us here. What luck. What a f***ing curse." Later, she says, "My grandma said nothing real can be threatened. True love brought salvation back into me. With every tear came redemption. And my torture became my remedy."

In another spoken word segment, Beyoncé shares her grandmother's own lemonade recipe. "Take one pint of water, add a half pound of sugar, the juice of eight lemons, the zest of half lemon. Pour the water into one, then to another several times. Strain through a clean napkin. Grandmother. The alchemist. You spun gold out of this hard life. Conjured beauty from the things left behind. Found healing where it did not live. Discovered the antidote in your own kitchen. Broke the curse with your own two hands. You passed these instructions down to your daughter, who then passed them down to her daughter."

In the video for "Freedom," Bey also includes video footage of Jay Z's grandmother Hattie's 90th birthday party, in which Hattie says, "I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up. I was served lemons, but I made lemonade."