Jay-Z on The Subway; Explains Who He Is To Adorable Old Lady [VIDEO]

Hip-hop mogul and business wizard Jay-Z, whose net worth is in the $500 million range, took the R Train to a performance at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn as part of a short documentary "Where I'm From." If the goal of the doc was to present Jay-Z as a down-to-earth guy then it succeeded wildly thanks to this clip, whose star is not Hova but a sweet old lady on the train.

The Washington Post ID'ed the woman and got in touch with Ellen Grossman. She told the paper's Style Blog that she has since done her homework on the millionaire mogul.

"In general I have poor face recognition unless I know someone really well," Grossman told the Post. "I was aware Jay-Z was famous and existed, but I didn't know how famous. I've become much more aware of what he's done and who he is. And as I checked him out, I realized, how embarrassing that I didn't know who he was! There were all these photographers and a crowd of happy people around him, and security people. So it sort of dawned on me as I was looking around that he was someone famous."

Grossman said Jay-Z seemed stressed on the subway platform because of all the fans and onlookers. She feels she inadvertently offered Jay-Z an oasis from the chaos.

"When I said, 'Are you famous?' he looked kind of relieved... that it was a safe spot. Not to imply that his fans were threatening; just overwhelming," she explained.

The Hova encounter was not her first brush with fame. She said she met Dick Cavett at a lunch counter "a zillion years ago."

Now all that's left is a video of Dick Cavett explaining who he is to some Jay-Z fans