Beyoncé didn’t sing ‘Black national anthem’ at an NFL game; the claim is satire

After Beyoncé announced new music on the day of the Super Bowl LVIII, social media users are stirring up rumors of a conflict between the global superstar and the National Football League.

"Beyoncé faces nearly $10 billion loss following ‘Black national anthem’ performance at NFL," read the text in a Feb. 13 Facebook post.

(Screenshot from Facebook)

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"California lawmakers are planning to push free abortion pills on all students across the state as part of a ‘super progressive’ new policy."

In the comments, the post’s author linked to a nostalgianews24.com article with a headline identical to the claim. The article claimed that after Beyoncé performed "Lift Every Voice and Sing" at an NFL game, a "sizable portion" of Beyoncé’s fanbase, dubbed the "Beyhive," sought membership fee refunds amounting to $1 billion.

But the text comes from a September 2023 article published by SpaceXMania, a satirical site. Its "About Us" page reads, "Quick heads up, though — every single article on our site is about as real as a unicorn sipping on a rainbow smoothie. They’re pure fantasy, folks, not a snapshot of reality."

Beyoncé performed "Lift Every Voice and Sing" at the Coachella music festival in Indio, California, in 2018. We found no evidence in news reports or Google or Nexis database searches that such a performance by Beyoncé occurred at an NFL game.

Beyoncé is not facing nearly $10 billion in losses after singing the "Black national anthem" at an NFL game, because that performance didn’t happen. We rate that claim Pants on Fire!