Photo by Phillip Faraon
How Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz First Met: Inside Their Love Story
Alicia Keys opened up about her relationship with husband Swizz Beatz during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show on November 24, sharing the story of how the two first connected.
“Crazily, we’ve known each other since I was 15 and he was 16,” Keys said. “We both grew up in New York City, and a mutual friend said to him, ‘You have to meet my friend Alicia.’”
Keys revealed that Beatz thought she looked tough while wearing a North Face jacket and admitted he was initially “scared of her.” The two first met at his high school in the Bronx, but Keys added “she doesn’t remember the name of the school”.
Reflecting on their relationship, Keys added, “Who would have known we would be married now for 15 years?”
In her memoir More Myself, Keys wrote that she wasn’t interested in Beatz at the time, and that it stayed that way for years.
“We ended up in the same circles at various awards shows and industry events,” she wrote. “He’d usually pull up in some fancy car, rolling deep with his Bronx crew and shining with diamonds. I wanted nothing to do with that scene or with Swizz.”
Their paths crossed again in 2008 when they collaborated on a music project. It was then that Keys began to change her mind.
“The more we talked the more I noticed how his mind worked,” she wrote. “Beyond the baggy jeans and arm tats there was depth. He was so aware of what was happening around the world.” The couple reportedly began dating in the fall of that year.
After nearly two years of dating, Keys and Beatz announced their engagement in May 2010, along with news that they were expecting their first child.
In July 2010, the pair tied the knot in a private ceremony on the Mediterranean Sea, officiated by family friend Deepak Chopra. “Everything was just wow. It was a blessing,” Beatz later said of their wedding. “It was positive energy, and we’re still in those moments.”
The couple welcomed their first child, Egypt Daoud Dean, on October 14, 2010, in New York City. Their second son, Genesis Ali Dean, was born on December 27, 2014. Beatz shared the news on Instagram with a photo of his newborn son’s footprints, captioned: “The Joy of Joy is Joy🙏 it’s a Boy🎉🎉🎉 #Blessings🙏.”
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