An unsuccessful photo of a pop star is popular on the Internet, often accompanied by a story about how her lawyer, through the court, got this photo removed from the Internet. We decided to check the reliability of such publications.
“Today is exactly N years since we traditionally congratulate Beyoncé’s lawyer on winning the lawsuit to remove this photo from the Internet” - such posts (remarkably, on different dates) constantly appear on social networks (X, "VKontakte", Facebook*, Telegram) and on blogging platforms (LiveJournal, "Peekaboo") since the mid-2010s. Mention of this story can also be found on entertaining portals, forums, services questions and answers and glossy publications
The resonant photo of Beyonce, judging by the background and appearance of the singer, was taken on February 3, 2013 at the Super Bowl - the championship game of the National Football League in the United States. Pop star performed at the halftime show. Not only was there a video broadcast at the event, but photographers from numerous media, information and photo agencies also worked. The next day, BuzzFeed published selection snapshots and video clips of the singer’s performance with the headline “33 of the most memorable moments from Beyoncé’s halftime show.” The article was quite complimentary, and although some of the photos could hardly be called successful, they illustrated the dedication and passion with which the singer performed.
However, Beyoncé’s representatives did not appreciate the good intentions of BuzzFeed journalists: the singer’s PR agent wrote a polite letter to the editor asking them to remove some “unflattering” pictures and replace them with more successful ones. Instead of meeting the artist halfway, journalists published the letter she received and (again) the very photos she asked to be removed. However, this time they were quite favorable towards the singer - the authors of the article ask a rhetorical question: “In what world can these photos be considered unflattering?” No information that this was followed by a lawsuit from the singer’s lawyers against BuzzFeed, the Getty Images agency, which owned the pictures, or the Internet as a whole, could not be found in reliable sources. However, it is likely that Beyoncé’s representatives asked to remove the “unflattering” photos not only in BuzzFeed - some of them were still found in the Getty Images database disappeared shortly after publication.
However, the letter from the singer’s PR agent provoked the so-called Streisand effect: The pictures were not only not forgotten, but instantly became viral. Some publications arranged competitions photoshop of Beyoncé and announced footage of the singer is the funniest meme of the year. In June 2013, the Reddit platform appeared fast with the headline “Beyoncé's Lawyers Successfully Removed This Image. As you can see, he is no longer there." Of course, the same photograph was attached to the publication. The post collected almost 2,000 comments, and some of them noted: the real situation is far from that described by the author. From the context it is clear that this is just a joke - it is unknown whether it was invented by the Reddit user himself or taken from comments on other publications. Soon the context was forgotten, and users began distribute “unflattering” photo of the singer, quite seriously claimingthat her lawyer won a lawsuit demanding that the photo be removed from the Internet.
It is worth noting that the resonant photo itself, which is distributed by Internet users year after year, was not published in the BuzzFeed collection, which became the reason for the singer’s dissatisfaction. However, there is no doubt that it was taken at the same event. It was not possible to find its original source “Verified” - it is quite possible that it was among those pictures that were removed by the Getty Images agency. Apparently, the singer was indeed upset by the appearance of such footage on the Internet, because banned photojournalists to photograph concerts as part of her next tour.
Thus, the story about Beyoncé’s lawyer winning a lawsuit to remove an unsuccessful photo of the singer from the Internet is a gross exaggeration. In fact, there was no lawsuit or trial: the singer’s PR agent simply wrote a very polite letter to one of the major American online publications with a request to replace the photographs that were not the most successful from her point of view. The publication refused to do this and inflated the story with clickbait headlines in the spirit of “Beyoncé’s PR people don’t want you to see these photos.” And Internet users picked it up and further distorted the information - first as a joke, and years later seriously claiming that the singer’s representatives were suing for deleting the photo.
*Russian authorities consider the company Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, to be an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: social networks
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