Jay-Z says he hasn’t allowed himself to get close to anyone since his dad, Adnes Reeves, walked out on his family more than 20 years ago.
“I became more guarded,” the rapper and Def Jam CEO says in an unusually revealing interview in Rolling Stone. “I never wanted to be attached to something and get that taken away again. And it affects my relationships with women.”
Having reconciled with Reeves shortly before his death in 2003, Jay confides that, at 35, he’s ready to become a father himself in “the next five years.”
But the man who grew up as Sean Carter is still keeping people at a distance. After spending two years working with writer Dream Hampton on his memoir, The Black Book, Jay doesn’t want the public to read it. In fact, he can’t bring himself to read it. Hampton, we hear, is far from pleased with her subject’s sudden shyness. Particularly when he’s so eager to cash in on his fame by offering his image to any corporation through his Jay-Z Blue licensing company.