Jay-Z won’t back down to Robert De Niro: ‘Doesn’t matter who you are’

Robert De Niro

Legendary actor Robert De Niro got into a spat with hip-hop superstar Jay-Z late last year after he said that Jay wasn’t returning his phone calls. The two ran into each other at a restaurant in Hollywood during Leonardo DiCaprio‘s birthday party and The Raging Bull star gave Jay-Z an earful over the perceived disrespect. In a recent interview with “The Breakfast Club,” Jay-Z was asked about the beef with Bobby. He revealed that he’s not going to budge an inch or apologize to the two-time Oscar winner.


Asked if he’d squashed the beef with the star, Jay said: “Who? No–no I haven’t.”


De Niro’s claim was that he’d tried to reach out to the rapper about a song he agreed to record for the Tribeca Film Festival but Jay-Z never returned his calls. An insider said at the time: “Bob was sitting at a table when Jay-Z went over to say ‘hello,’ De Niro told Jay that he never called him back.”

But Jay now says that he’s not going to give in to De Niro just because he’s Robert De Niro. He says that the disrespect was mutual.


“I treat people based on who they are,” Jay explained. “Who they really are. Not the name–not ‘Robert De Niro.’ But who you are as a person. It doesn’t matter who you are.”

“Everyone has to be respectful, everyone has to be a human being,” he added. “No one’s above [that]. We’re all human beings and we all have to be respectful to one another. That’s just the end of it and that’s how I carry it with anybody.”

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