Rihanna was so embarrassed by rumours she landed her record deal by embarking on a sexual relationship with Jay-Z, she couldn’t look him in the face. Rumors surfaced alleging the Rated R star was more than just friends with her mentor when she was discovered in her native Barbados by the rap mogul in 2006. Even her closest friend believed she’d bedded Hov to get signed — but Rihanna insists she has never been intimate with the hip-hop star.

“It was like: ‘Of course she had to give Jay-Z oral sex to get that deal.’ That rumour was everywhere in Barbados and it was so disgusting. It made me feel really weird. I would even be weird around Jay-Z. I wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye,” Rihanna recently confessed. “One day, he called and he was like, ‘Yo, you can’t buy into these rumours. You can’t let people move you with anything they say.’ The rumours got very funny to me after that.”