We’re only a few months into 2018 and we already have the lead for wildest celebrity anecdote this year.
A GQ Magazine profile of comedian Tiffany Haddish published Monday revealed a few things: She drinks turpentine, is a dream whale watching companion and, um, witnessed an actress biting Beyoncé on the face.
Beyoncé fans — the Beyhive – went into high alert. Pop culture Twitter went bananas. Someone allegedly bit Beyoncé — considered a queen-like mega pop star — on the face. On the face. Like, on the face.
What a weird thing to happen to anyone. But Beyoncé? Utterly bonkers. The singer has such a tightly controlled image and is a pro at keeping her private life very private, showing snippets only on her terms. She manages to drop surprise albums without nary a song leaked in advance. Her 2016 visual album “Lemonade,” while her most revealing work to date, left fans guessing as to whether she was singing about her husband’s infidelity. Cheating rumors and missteps were pretty much confirmed the following year on Jay-Z’s album”4:44.”
That’s why the infamous elevator incident of 2014 was so shocking. The TMZ footage provided a rare, uncontrolled glimpse into the Carter-Knowles world. (Beyoncé eventually alluded to the dramatic fallout in her music.)
Okay, but back to face-biting: According to Haddish, it happened during the after-party for a December Jay-Z concert.
Beyoncé’s representative, Yvette Noel-Schure, told GQ: “I absolutely cannot comment on any of this, as I have no knowledge.”
According to Haddish, at the party, an actress — who she wouldn’t name — was “just, like, doing the mostest.” This included biting Beyoncé, prompting the pop star to storm away, grab Jay-Z and head to the back of the room.
“I was like, ‘What just happened?'” Haddish recalled. “And Beyoncé’s friend walked up and was like, ‘Can you believe this b– just bit Beyoncé?’
From the GQ story:
“And so then. . .,” she continues, “a lot of things happened.”
According to Haddish, she and the actress continued to cross paths throughout the night, culminating in a brief standoff. The actress, at one point, told Haddish to stop dancing, which-good luck making that happen.
“And then Beyoncé and Jay-Z walked by me, and I tapped Beyoncé.”
Haddish says she told Beyoncé, “I’m going to beat somebody a- at your party. I just want to let you know that.” Beyoncé asked her not to — told her to “have fun” instead. (Haddish leveraged this moment into a selfie with Beyoncé.)
“Near the end of the party,” says Haddish, describing her final run-in with Mrs. Carter sometime later, “Beyoncé’s at the bar, so I said to Beyoncé, ‘Did she really bite you?’ She was like, ‘Yeah.’ “
Haddish then went on to tell Beyoncé she was going to beat up the actress, but Beyoncé told her not to, that the woman is “on drugs. She not even drunk. . . . She not like that all the time. Just chill.”
Haddish has previously dished about the night in question, telling Vulture that she had wanted to fight someone but Bey told her to just have a good time instead, and then telling TV One’s “Uncensored” that another actress touched Jay-Z’s chest, prompting Beyoncé to intercede.
“She started talking to the other actress and some other stuff happened, but I’m not gonna say nothin’ yet,” Haddish said at the time. “But it’s gonna be in these streets.”
Beyoncé had alluded to Haddish’s storytelling skills in a verse of the DJ Khaled single, “Top Off,” singing, “If they’re tryna party with the queen/ They gon’ have to sign a non-disclosure.”
But these new details on Monday prompted an army of amateur detectives to dive into action, sleuthing for whatever clues they could dig up and tweeting #WhoBitBeyonce to identify the actress in question.
Chrissy Teigen immediately jumped in, tweeting “I can only think of one person who would do this. but I cannot say. but she. . . . is the worst.” She then tried to tamp down any suggestion of Gwyneth Paltrow, and then went back on her initial guess, hinting she knows the identify of the rumored actress.
Lots of folks also seized upon The Cut’s celebrity gossip column, which in February published a handful of party attendee names — Rihanna, James Franco, French Montana, Queen Latifah and actresses Sanaa Lathan and Sara Foster. Soon, Lathan’s and Foster’s Instagram posts were bombarded by with angry messages and bee emojis. (The Beyhive also did the same to Haddish in her social media posts.).
“I wish I could get close enough to Beyoncé to bite her,” Foster wrote on her Instagram story.
This isn’t the first time the Beyhive has gone after a purported Beyoncé nemesis. In 2016, her song “Sorry” called out “Becky with the good hair.” Fans interpreted this as Jay-Z cheating on Beyoncé with this “Becky,” and they frantically searched for clues of her identity — only to land on Rachel Roy, a fashion designer and ex-wife of Jay Z’s ex-business partner.
Roy didn’t help matters by posting a coy Instagram caption: “Good hair don’t care, but we will take good lighting, for selfies, or self truths, always. live in the light #nodramaqueen.” It didn’t take long before Roy had to make her account private, as she was bombarded with nasty notes. (Not to mention celebrity chef Rachael Ray was the unintended target of some furious fans who swore they would never make her recipe for hot chicken fajitas again.)
While the guessing game continues, we can cross off one name for sure.
“Media Takeout is saying it was Taraji,” someone tweeted, referring to Taraji P. Henson.
Haddish replied: “No it wasn’t.”
Emily Yahr contributed.
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