Some hip-hop gossip – Lil B signing his cat, for instance – is mildly titillating. Occasionally, though, you discover a story that genuinely beggars belief. This is one of them.

Over the last few days, numerous outlets (The Telegraph among them) have been reporting that New Orleans rap sage Jay Electronica has been engaged in a covert amorous affair with supremely wealthy banking scion Kate Goldsmith, née Rothschild. Goldsmith – who inherited £18m when her banker father passed away in 1996 – reportedly met Electronica through her dabblings in the music business, having founded the small Roundtable Records imprint in 2010. A friend of Goldsmith’s husband said that she was “obsessed with this chap called Jay Electronica”.

A spokesman suggested that the reports were illegitimate: “Articles in today’s media contain false and inaccurate information which appears to have been given to the media in a deliberate attempt to damage Kate and her businesses as well as to deflect from the gravity of last week’s incident involving the police”. Electronica, of course, has previously been in a relationship with Erykah Badu, with whom he has a child. Messy as this whole business is, it’s weirdly gratifying to see right-of-centre broadsheets discussing Act I: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge).