Eric Benét has gotten over the “crazy” feeling of being referenced by Jay-Z on 4:44 song “Kill Jay-Z.”
On the opening track of the 2017 album, Jay rapped: "You almost went Eric Benét / Let the baddest girl in the world get away / I don't even know what else to say / Nigga, never go Eric Benét." The lyric was a reference to Benet’s widely publicized divorce from Academy Award winner Halle Berry, who he divorced in 2005 after four years of marriage.
The R&B musician recalled “Kill Jay-Z” on the Wednesday (July 15) episode of Angie Martinez IRL around the 40-minute mark of the video below.
“There was no animosity about that,” Benét told Martinez, adding that he “thought he was being cute” by responding in a tweet at the time.
“Hey yo #Jayz! Just so ya know, I got the baddest girl in the world as my wife....like right now! ✌🏾,” tweeted Benét, who’s been married to businesswoman Manuela Testolini since 2011. The couple share two children, while Benét has a 34-year-old daughter, India, shared with his late girlfriend, Tami Stauff, who died in a 1993 car accident.
Benét said that the tweet “backfired” and joked that he “should’ve shut the fuck up” at the time. The musician went on to explain that he was in Cuba at the time the song was released and saw news articles that he was “angry” about the Jay-Z lyric.
“We were like chilling in Havana with cigars and shit having a good time laughing about the whole thing,” Benét said. “It's just funny how the media will take something…”
In June, Benét appeared on The Breakfast Club to deny that he was a “sex addict” as previously reported during his marriage to Berry but explained that he did attend a 35-day sex-addict rehabilitation program before their divorce.
"When I first went [to rehab], the definition was if you've ever been unfaithful in your primary relationship or a marriage? You got a sex addiction," Benét said. “I never felt like, and I still don’t feel like, I was or am an addict. … Basically, when it came down to it, I fucked up. I was dumb, I did stupid things, I was selfish.”
Neatly two years before, the Monster’s Ball star shared her disbelief that Benét had a sex addiction.
