Jay-Z Defends Kanye West On 'Howard Stern Show'

Jay-Z paid a visit to Howard Stern's Sirius satellite radio show on Monday morning (November 15), and despite his reputation for getting stars like David Arquette to spill the beans on their private lives, the King of All Media stuck mostly to business and stories from the rapper's book, "Decoded," which comes out on Tuesday.

During a wide-ranging interview that touched on Jay-Z's rough upbringing in the Marcy Projects, the first time he met Rihanna, his relationship with President Obama and his strained connection with his late father, Jay also weighed in on the recently renewed interest in Kanye West's comments about former President George W. Bush.

"I would love to talk about that," Jigga said when co-host Robin Quivers lamented near the end of the hour-long interview that they hadn't gotten a chance to discuss Kanye.

"It's bittersweet in a lot of ways," he said about the impact on his business of West's decision to protest Swift's win over Beyoncé at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. "If we look back, everyone would agree that he was right. It was bad timing. It was not her fault. It's not Taylor Swift's fault. She didn't nominate ... she didn't elect herself. She just sat there and she had a dream and she's seeing that dream being realized, and he had the same dream, so he realizes that now. He was fighting for the integrity of the award, and he knows how hard he works on his videos. It was bad timing, but we agreed."

And Jigga said 'Ye had the right intentions when he made his famous remark about President Bush during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina relief telethon. "It was bad timing, but it was absolutely an honest emotion," he said. "We all felt like that. We didn't feel like Katrina was a natural disaster. We felt like it as an attack on black people. All you saw was black people on the roof with help signs. ... White people felt like that."

Stern also brought up the inevitable questions about Jay's marriage to Beyoncé. "Everyone knows I'm married; I just don't discuss it," Jay said. "Because it's a part of my life that I'd rather keep private. ... When your whole life is played out in front of everybody, for your sanity, you need parts that are just yours."

When Quivers asked the other inevitable question, whether the couple are expecting a child, Jay was quick with a "no," joking about how he laughs when he reads such reports all the time. "I really sit back and wonder when people are going to stop. ... The day that happens, I don't think Newsday is going to know before my grandmother."