Jay Z has spoken about why he cheated on Beyonce.

The musician said that he had gotten to a place where he "shut down emotionally" and that this negatively affected his relationships with women. Speaking to Dean Baquet from the New York Times, he said:

"You have to survive. So you go into survival mode, and when you go into survival mode, what happens? You shut down all emotions. So, even with women, you gonna shut down emotionally, so you can't connect. In my case, like, it's deep. And then all the things happen from there: infidelity."

While both Jay Z and Beyonce referenced this infidelity on their albums, Lemonade and 4:44, this is the first time that either of them have spoken openly about the issue. Jay Z went on to say that once he started seeing a therapist he "grew so much." "I think the most important thing I got is that everything is connected. Every emotion is connected and it comes from somewhere. And just being aware of it," he said. https://www.instagram.com/p/BZE0CpHnh_e/?hl=en&taken-by=beyonce The No Church in the Wild singer also spoke about the "pain" that he often felt growing up and the attitudes he was surrounded by that made him feel this way.

"I was just saying there was a lot of fights in our neighborhood that started with, 'What you looking at? Why you looking at me? You looking at me?' "And then you realize: 'Oh, you think I see you. You’re in this space where you’re hurting, and you think I see you, so you don’t want me to look at you. And you don’t want me to see you.'"

Jay Z also revealed that the couple had been working on a joint album together as a kind of "therapy session," but that Beyonce's album was further along so it came out first. "We still have a lot of that music," he said.