The Real Reasons Beyoncé Can't Stand Kim Kardashian

Newsflash: Kim Kardashian and Beyoncé allegedly are not friends. Even though they're seen together occasionally, the relationship is reportedly rather one-sided, with Kardashian allegedly bending over backward to get into Queen Bey's good graces but failing miserably. Why aren't these superstars BFFs? For starters, there's the Kanye West factor. Kim Kardashian's rapper/producer husband was already a polarizing figure in the music world even before he started calling out Bey and her husband on stage during his disastrous 2016 Saint Pablo Tour. That couldn't have helped things.

Of course, the whole Kim v. Bey feud has also been reduced to the easy explanation that they're just not that alike: Kim's a reality star whose fame is dependent on sharing her whole life with her fans, whereas Beyoncé keeps her personal life almost entirely disconnected from her career. Could it really be that simple, or is there more to the story? Let's dive into the real reasons Beyoncé can't stand Kim Kardashian.

In November 2016, Kanye West abruptly stopped a show during his Saint Pablo Tour to spill the tea on Beyoncé and Jay Z. According to E! News, West ranted from the stage, "Beyoncé, I was hurt 'cause I heard that you said you wouldn't perform unless you won video of the year over me and over 'Hotline Bling.'" He added, "Now, don't go trying to diss Beyoncé. She is great ... We are all great people. We are all equal, but sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forgetting who we are just to win." 

The expletive-laden tirade went on and on. "Jay Z, call me, bruh," West said. "You still ain't called me. Jay Z, call me ... Jay Z: I know you got killers. Please don't send them at my head. Just call me. Talk to me like a man." He also used a concert to fume to Jay (and the rest of the world): "Our kids ain't never even played together."

Of course, Kanye's remarks are his own, but if Kim's only connection to Beyoncé was through Kanye's tumultuous relationship with Jay Z, then it's obvious there would be a strain there. As it turns out, Jay Z would later confirm the fractured friendship.

Jay Z finally responded to West's concert rants with his 2017 track, "Kill Jay Z." On it, Jay Z raps, "You gave him 20 million without blinkin' / He gave you 20 minutes on stage, f**k was he thinkin'?" This took the West rants from just "Kanye being Kanye" to a full-on feud.

Jay Z and West then battled it out in subsequent interviews, with West telling Rap Radar podcast (via E! News) that West crossed the line when he brought Bey and the kids into their beef. However, the "99 Problems" rapper then backtracked on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction (via Variety), and with The New York Times, when he called West his "little brother" and chalked the whole thing up to family feuding. 

But hang on, because everything wasn't all "KumbaYe" quite yet...

In April 2018, West sat down for an extensive interview with Charlamagne Tha God and admitted that this whole rift started when Jay and Bey skipped his wedding — a snub that they've never directly addressed. West also revealed the surprising status of his relationship with Jay Z at the time of the interview.

"We good ... we texting each other — it's positive energy," West said, adding, "I haven't seen him, but I can feel him." Asked whether he felt he crossed the line by speaking about Jay Z's family during his tour, West quibbled and offered no apology. "If we're family, if we're brothers and we are family, then it's my family," he said. "If we're business associates in this, than it was too far." Oof. This beef sounds far from squashed.

As for how all of this applies directly to Kim and Beyoncé, ask yourself this, ladies: If one of your supposed girlfriends flaked out on your wedding without so much as to a reason why, what would you think she thinks of you?

Kim Kardashian has documented everything from a crumbling 72-day marriage to the smell of her own private parts on her reality show. Could you imagine Beyoncé doing anything remotely close to that? Point in case: No one even knew about Beyoncé and Jay Z's 2008 wedding until it was over. Kardashian and West, meanwhile, court the very publicity that Hov and Bey try to avoid.

As a result, anonymous "sources" supposedly from Jay and Bey's camp have spilled tons of tea on the subject. "[Beyoncé] always gives Kanye a lot of grief whenever he does anything for the show [Keeping Up with the Kardashians]," one source told Page Six. Another Page Six story reported that Kardashian and West's obsession with fame irritates Bey and Jay. "[Jay-Z] likes his own space and is private," a source told the tab. "Jay's immediate circle is very insular, and Kanye is just a guy who always wants something in the spotlight."

Radar Online even went so far as to quote a source who claimed, "B calls Kim a 'scandalous social climbing wh*re' behind her back." Someone ring the alarm!

As Beyoncé's opus Lemonade overtly indicated, Jay Z allegedly fooled around behind her back and she didn't take it lying down. The infidelity understandably caused such a rift in their marriage that Jay Z even addressed it on his own album, 4:44 on which he references the infamous "Becky" from Beyoncé's scathing "Sorry" track, as well as refers to himself as a womanizer who has had to "explain my mistakes."  

Meanwhile, Yeezy's ex, Amber Rose, claims Kardashian and West first started hooking up when West and Rose were still dating. Rose called Kardashian a "homewrecker," claiming to Star (via Radar Online), "They were both cheating. [West and Kardashian] were both cheating on me and Reggie [Bush] with each other ... It's very important that us women stick together and we don't f**k each other over like that."

If Rose is telling the truth, there is a strong chance Bey at least side-eyes Kimye's relationship history.

There have been a few instances when Beyoncé's rabid fan base (aka The Beyhive) has gone after Kim Kardashian for allegedly trying to steal spotlight from its Queen Bey — most notably, perhaps, when Beyoncé's Lemonade album dropped in 2016. Kardashian simultaneously posted a spree of sexually suggestive photos from a pal's wedding to her Instagram account while making no mention of her supposed friend's magnum opus.

Kardashian also cramped Beyoncé's style in May 2015, when she wore a white Roberto Cavalli dress to the MET Gala that many felt was a clear copycat of the stunning Givenchy gown Beyoncé wore to the same event three years earlier. Kardashian insisted she was inspired by Cher. Coincidences happen, right? 

Well, in May 2018, The Shade Room called out Kardashian for another alleged MET Gala dress snatch. This time Kim hit an after party in a "Versace bondage-inspired dress with a caged corset and bungee straps" that Beyonce previously wore in a 2011 shoot for Complex. Yikes. That's not only the same "#BishStoleMyLook" move, but it happened at the same event.

Nothing casts doubt on a friendship like skipping monumental life events, and we already know that Jay and Bey bailed on Kimye's wedding. On top of that Beyoncé and Kardashian didn't attend each other's baby showers, of which there have been five, including the most recent one for Kardashian's third child, Chicago. Granted, these are busy women, but come on. Out of all these joyous occasions, these supposed friends couldn't get together for one?

Then there's the alleged "regifting." According to the Heat (via StyleCaster), Kardashian allegedly sent "one of her KKW Beauty contour kits in a gold box worth $150,000," along with "$10,000 worth of clothes for Blue Ivy and the twins from her sold-out children's fashion line, The Kids Supply." But Beyoncé reportedly gave everything "to the nurses in the hospital for their kids." The cringe-worthy notion of Kardashian gifting people stuff from her own product lines aside, if this "regift" rumor is true, Beyoncé should have just shipped everything back with a custom label attached that read: We're not friends.

While Jay Z and Kanye West publicly battled in song lyrics and meltdown rants, they waged a behind-the-scenes war over their business partnership regarding Jay Z's streaming service, Tidal. In July 2017, Billboard reported both West and Jay Z each claimed the other was in breach of contract. West claimed he wasn't paid for subscriptions brought to the service with his The Life of Pablo album, and Tidal claimed West "failed to deliver" contracted music videos.

At the time, the two rappers were at an impasse with negotiations, with sources telling Billboard West would no longer honor Tidal's exclusivity rights due to "failure to honor its financial obligations." However a few months later, sources told TMZ that Jay Z and West were planning a "face-to-face" meeting to get this all hashed out.

Remember, West admitted in April 2018, that he and Jay Z hadn't seen each other in years, so it's possible the Tidal beef remains unresolved. With this boardroom beef still brewing, even if their wives were friends before this — which, come on, they clearly weren't — things would definitely be awkward now.

Designer Rachel Roy is close friends with Kim Kardashian, but Roy is allegedly arch enemies with Beyoncé. Why? On top of sources reporting Roy's flirty nature with Jay Z, the fashion designer is often fingered as the woman who sparked the infamous 2014 elevator fight between Jay-Z and Beyoncé's sister, Solange, after a Met Gala.

Roy's presence is also rumored to be a big reason the Carters skipped Kardashian and West's wedding (and perhaps the couple's engagement), but the bad blood doesn't end there. Roy even gleefully played into rumors that she was the infamous "Becky" from Beyoncé's hard-hitting "Sorry" track.

That said, Kardashian could easily mitigate any awkward friend triangulation between herself, Roy, and Beyoncé if she wanted to. However, self-promotion is the lifeblood of every Kardashian, so in July 2017, Kim Snapchatted (via Instagram) a video of herself and Roy boarding a private plane for a "Couples Retreat to San Fran." In the battle of social media "likes" versus appeasing the socially reticent Queen Bey, we're pretty sure we know where Kardashian falls on that one.

Beyoncé is a pop culture icon who is nearly without reproach. Kim Kardashian is a reality TV star who successfully commodified her image into a brand. Though the sources of their fame couldn't be further apart, in Kardashian's mind, they're now living similar lives.  

Sources told Hollywood Life that Kardashian's reacted to Jay Z's infidelity confessions on 4:44 by saying, "She looks at herself and Kanye the same way," adding that they are "just like Jay and Bey" who "have have fought to keep their relationship strong and now they are in a really great place." Granted, that's third-party speculation, but West is quite clear on how he feels his wife measures up to his multi-Grammy-winning contemporary.

Claiming that Kardashian and Beyoncé "love" and "respect" each other, West told 105.1 FM (via Vulture), "When Beyoncé's working on her album, she has pictures of Kim on the wall because Kim represents powerful women." He continued, "But maybe there's a LeBron James/Kobe [Bryant] element to it, but I can't say that."

Beyoncé keeps Kim picture on the wall, huh? Did Ye also happen to notice a stash of darts laying around near it?  

What could Beyoncé and Kardashian possibly have to talk about? Not a whole lot, according to some reports. A source dished to Page Six, "Beyoncé has never genuinely liked Kim ... She is always a little icy to Kim. The last time they hung out, the minute Beyoncé could leave the conversation, she did. They always have lots of awkward pauses."

Witnesses have corroborated this idea. Sources told the New York Daily News the pair avoided one another at the Made in America festival in September 2012 and barely spoke even when they were standing next to each other.

However, there may have been a crack in the metaphorical ice wall between them at Serena Williams' November 2017 wedding. According to TMZ, sources observed Kardashian and Beyoncé in a VIP area where they allegedly "exchanged hellos, hugged and showed off some pics of their kids." That sounds like progress, but what are the chances Kardashian came away from an interaction like that without a selfie? Yeah, we're not buying it, either.

Since we've already established the importance Kim Kardashian places on her social media interactions, we're going to allow this relatively dubious factoid onto the list. According to Refinery 29, Kim liked, then unliked Beyoncé's Instagram post celebrating one month since the birth of her twins, Sir and Rumi. Drama Alert!

Supposedly, Kardashian was shamed into retracting the like after the Beyhive came for her on Twitter. To complicate matters further, the timing of the post revealed that Bey and Jay's twins share a birthday just two days apart from Kardashian's daughter, North, who was born on on June 15, 2013 (while Rumi and Sir were born June 13, 2017). Upstaged again!

Of course, we're aware that Beyoncé could probably care less about who likes her Instagram posts. But the fact that something as seemingly benign as Kardashian interacting with Beyoncé's social media can grab the headlines in such a way can't possibly sit well with the pop star who has managed to rise above such nonsense.

One of the most direct indicators that Beyoncé can't stand Kim Kardashian has to be the inclusion of a certain phrase in her 2018 track, "Top Off." We're talking about the line, "I break the internet, top two and I ain't number two," which seems like a clear reference to Kardashian's infamous (and super NSFW) Paper Magazine shoot which coined the term "break the internet."

Of course, Beyoncé could just be using the phrase to emphasize her own headline-generating life, but according to Newshub, she doubled down with the next line, "My body, my ice, my cash, all real, I'm a triple threat," which they perceived as a reference to Kardashian's alleged plastic surgeries.

Again, this is third-party interpretation of vague shade thrown in a song. Will we ever find out exactly what Beyoncé meant in "Top Off?" Probably not. But we doubt she's going to be throwing Kardashian any positive shout-outs in the remix in order to clear this all up.