In the nearly two years since Beyoncé vulnerably opened up about the rocky parts of her marriage to Jay, there has been an interesting amount of weight put on his version of events, even before we knew a rebuttal album was in the works. I had so many conversations with friends (mainly men, go figure) on social media and in real life who thought that Bey was simply spinning sensational narratives to drum up publicity for the album. They made fun of women who could relate to the pain Bey expressed and doubted that Jay would ever actually cheat on Beyoncé. They didn’t believe her until Jay himself admitted his wrongdoings himself, nearly a year later. Lemonade may have been the first time Beyoncé got so personal on an album, but it wasn’t the first time people refused to believe a woman over the word of a man. This could be a reach, but I feel like 4:44 taking home Album of the Year would have been another validation of his courage for admitting guilt over Bey’s admission of pain.