Beyoncé has been accused of possibly throwing shade at Childish Gambino during the opening show of her Renaissance World Tour.
On Wednesday (May 10), Queen Bey kickstarted her international trek in Stockholm, Sweden, and at one point donned a bee costume to show some support for her Beyhive fan base.
However, a few fans theorized online that the R&B hitmaker may have thrown some shade at Donald Glover and his Amazon Prime series Swarm, which was inspired by Beyoncé’s cult-like fanbase.
“Swarm on these hands, n-gga!” Bey can be heard calling out to the crowd, with fans assuming she was targeting Glover.
https://twitter.com/chuuzus/status/1656416183099244544
we love the shade toward the donald the duck or whatever his name is
— Aliyah Interludes Stan Account (@livingforsolana) May 10, 2023
CATCH IT @donaldglover
— NKH (@normaknees) May 10, 2023
Its the Donald glover shade 😭😭
— 👑Alien Superstar 💫 (@sehunsWIFE__) May 10, 2023
Donald Glover made headlines in March after he admitted that he intentionally did not prepare Dominique Fishback for her role in Swarm as a young serial killer obsessed with a pop star that many presumed to be a Beyoncé-esque singer.
The multi-hyphenate said in an interview with Vulture that he encouraged Fishback to act like an animal in the role.
“I kept telling her, ‘You’re not regular people. You don’t have to find the humanity in your character. That’s the audience’s job’,” Glover said. “She really was lost a lot of the time.”
He added: “It reminds me of how I have a fear with dogs because I’m like, ‘You’re not looking at me in the eye, I don’t know what you’re capable of.”
The backlash was swift, with many people criticizing Glover’s treatment of Black women in his art in the past.
Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour opener was also memorable because she performed her own version of Lil Uzi Vert’s “Just Wanna Rock” dance.
With one of the most highly anticipated tours of the year finally underway, Queen Bey likely stands to make a financial killing. As reported by Forbes earlier this week, the run of shows could pull in over $2 billion, which would make it the highest-grossing tour of all time.
$751 million and $2.4 billion are the low and high estimations based on average ticket prices from 52 shows, and with merch, she could make over $171 million based on the 300,000 items sold at an average price of $100. Assuming she keeps 80 percent of merchandise revenue, Beyoncé would earn around $136.8 million.
That record currently belongs to Elton John, whose Farewell Yellow Brick Road pulled in a staggering $853,000,000 from 293 concerts between 2018 and 2023.
