 Erika Ramirez and Andrew Hampp of Billboard felt that the song mixed " uncanny " styles and noted that as the chorus starts , listeners " can see Beyonce singing this from the stage surrounded by smoke machines . " USA Today writer Elysa Gardner wrote that in " Jealous " along with " Haunted " , the singer " embodies success and privilege on the surface , but there is a sense that her contentment is fragile " . Entertainment Weekly writer Nick Catucci observed that the song " treat [ s ] relationships with the same raw instinct that suffuses her sex songs " on the album . Writing for Clash magazine , Mike Diver praised Beyoncé 's vocal performance noting , " When Beyoncé truly unleashes her vocals on ballad @-@ tempo moments ... ' Jealous ' , she immediately casts long shadows over singers who might have tried to shift her from the top table of pop " . Mike Wass of Idolator considered " Jealous " to be an update of the singer 's " If I Were a Boy " , sang by a grown woman . He went on to praise the " frank , honest and vulnerable " characteristics the singer decided to showcase in the song , opposed to her other material where she was reluctant to discuss about them . Wass finished his review by noting that " Jealous " would be a " dark horse for a radio single down the line " . Brittany Spanos of The Village Voice described the song as a " grown up version " of " If I Were a Boy " with lyrics about " persistent mistrust " . Latifah Muhammad of BET deemed the song a " distant cousin " to " If I Were a Boy " and stated that its turning point comes during several lines of the bridge . 
