Jay Z's Former Fling Explains What It's Like to be Becky
Here's some good "hoooollly shit!" drama for your Saturday morning!
Karrine Steffans Short, video model and wife of former Scandal star Columbus Short, writes for XO Jane about being one of Jay Z's "Becky With the Good Hair." Karrine has been featured in tons of music videos and even wrote a book about her adventures called, "Confessions of a Video Vixen," which is billed on Amazon as, "[an] emotionally charged memoir from a former video vixen nicknamed 'Superhead' [Ed.: Ja Rule allegedly gave her this nickname!] goes beyond the glamour of celebrity to reveal the inner workings of the hip-hop dancer industry-from the physical and emotional abuse that's rampant in the industry, and which marked her own life-to the excessive use of drugs, sex and bling." (BRB, ordering 50 copies.)
In 2000 - so, long before Beyoncé was even a twinkle in Jay Z's eye - Karrine got a job dancing in one of his videos.
She writes:
I was a 21-year-old California transplant who'd been tossed into my first music video after a fateful meeting with director Hype Williams. A single mother raising my son on my own, I jumped at the chance to make $2,500 a day to dance around and look pretty next to the artist - Jay Z. He was a long-time friend of my cousin, Chuck, and after a call from him, Jay knew to keep me close, making sure I got loads of camera time. This was the beginning of my stint as a video girl, and one day Jay and I stole away for some time alone toward the end of the day.
Chauffeured away from the set, down the winding road, and closer to the shoreline, Jay and I feasted on our attraction to one another - rabidly and quickly. After just a few minutes, I lifted my head from his lap, wiped my lips, and knew we'd made a mistake. Over the next few years, I would see Jay again, as I became close with his then business partner Damon Dash. We never mentioned our Malibu melee and acted as if it never happened. My cousin Chuck would be livid.
So, there you have it. She was with Jay and now he's with Bey and now she's with Columbus. Not only that, Karrine is tired of seeing herself as simply a "Becky" and guess who helped her see the light on that? Queen Bey to the rescue!
Until Lemonade, I thought these two women were mutually exclusive but quickly realized they are not and are, in fact, often the same woman.
Because a woman is all things.
With this, she seems to comment on the duality of being a woman. You can be both a Bey and a Becky, and still be OK.
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