Leave it to Beyoncé to address rumors in a way that is, at the same
time, calculated and pointed, vague and prone to speculation, and, most
of all, sassy. Proving that Queen Bey has her pulse on exactly how to
swiftly grab the attention of today’s culture of web gossipers, both
getting them talking and shutting them up at the same time, she did it
all on Instagram.
On Wednesday morning, Beyoncé posted four photos in a row of her
smiling and looking happy with her sister, Solange. The first was
captioned, simply, “Good Morning.” The rest were posted captionless—as
was a photo of Beyoncé at the Met Gala with Rihanna—for all of us to
apply our own context to them. And we have.
It can’t be coincidence—as in, there’s no way it’s coincidence—that
Beyoncé posted the series of pictures just 48 hours after video surfaced
of Solange attacking her husband, Jay Z, in an elevator at a Met Gala
after-party while she looked on. A torrent of unsubstantiated theories
promptly popped all over the gossip sites and social media as to what
caused the fight, including one that Solange was mad that Jay Z was
ditching Beyoncé to go to another party with Rihanna.
Because Beyoncé appeared to be so passive during the video, standing in a
corner and hardly intervening while her sister slapped, punched, and
kicked her husband, the community of rampant anonymous speculators began
wondering out loud if Beyoncé was on Jay’s side during whatever
argument might have happened in the family.
That theory was bolstered after websites did some digging Tuesday and
discovered that Solange had appeared to have deleted all photos of
Beyoncé from her Instagram following the Met Gala, except
for—inexplicably—one photo, on which commenters were promptly snide to
point out, “You forgot to delete this one.” (Buzzfeed dug a little
deeper and found more than just the one example of photos of Beyoncé
that Solange “forgot” to delete.) Meanwhile, after the Met Ball Beyoncé
posted a prayer on her own Instagram account about casting out “anyone
who is not a good influence.”
Coincidence? You be the judge. Well, actually, the Internet already
judged. And they ruled that these sisters must hate each other.
Now, no one expected Beysus to come to the altar (press conference
podium) and deliver a sermon (statement) about what really happened that
night, or to confirm whether or not she and Solange were on the outs
after the incident. But the fact that she seems to slyly—or, rather,
quite obviously—be sending a message to us all through her Instagram is
an incredibly shrewd PR move. She’s managing to avoid acknowledging or
giving legitimacy to the internet vultures feasting on rumors of trouble
of the Knowles family, but also is shooting down the vultures
completely.
She’s both going on record and not going on the record at the same time. It’s brilliant.
Posting four photos in a row looking happy with her sister? Surely
that means that two are on good terms. (Though there is still room for
the theory that the series of Instagram photos is Bey’s way of throwing
epic amounts of shade at Solange for removing photos of her from her own
Instagram. You’re taking down photos of me? I’m going to flood my
account with photos of you.) And including the photo of herself with
Rihanna is the cherry on top of a rumor-squashing sundae.
For almost three days, we’ve been wondering how or if Beyoncé would
respond to this whole controversy. And, with this Instagram stunt, she
seems to have perfected the art of crisis management. But of course she
has. She’s perfect.
