Last week’s Democratic National Convention was a star-studded event, with special appearances from everyone from The Chicks to Lil Jon. However, one star that folks expected to see who didn’t show up was Beyoncé. Rumors about a performance from Cowboy Carter were so persistent that some delegates were even spotted wearing sashes like the one from Beyoncé’s album cover. While it was later revealed that Beyoncé was never even considered as a performer for the DNC, earlier this week, the convention’s producers revealed that even staffers thought they might end up being part of the Renaissance.
Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss, the convention’s producers, told The Hollywood Reporter, “We never put out anything about Beyoncé. We denied it every time the media asked us — even though, by the way, people on my staff didn’t believe me. I kept getting texts from news organizations saying, ‘When is Beyoncé coming out?’ But come on, we have the biggest star, the Democratic nominee for president. Why would we overshadow that?”
Weiss echoed Kirshner’s sentiment above, saying, “This is the internet taking on a life of its own and people taking something as fact — literally, to the point that people in my booth are saying, ‘Is she coming? You can tell me.’ And I would say, ‘I have no knowledge she’s coming.’ And they would say, ‘No knowledge? So there’s something to know!’ It was pretty crazy. But she wasn’t coming. In the end, even TMZ [which first reported it] had to issue an apology.”