Beyoncé is responding to a pair of controversies surrounding her latest music video, “Countdown,” and, surprisingly, her baby bump.
First up, the Grammy-winning pop diva has been accused of stealing the choreography in a portion of her flashy new video from a Belgian choreographer, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. No doubt about it, the side-by-side comparisons of the scene in “Countdown” and De Keersmaeker work shows a striking similarity, which prompted the choreographer to release a statement in response, saying, “I didn’t know anything about this. I’m not mad, but this is plagiarism. This is stealing. What’s rude about it is that they don’t even bother about hiding it. They seem to think they could do it because it’s a famous work. Am I honored? Look, I’ve seen local school kids doing this. That’s a lot more beautiful.” Well then!
But Beyoncé insists this is not stealing, just simply being inspired. “Clearly, the ballet ‘Rosas danst Rosas’ was one of many references for my video ‘Countdown,’” B said in a statement. “It was one of the inspirations used to bring the feel and look of the song to life.” And that’s that.
Lastly, Beyoncé has been forced to defend, of all things, the authenticity of her baby bump after it appeared to have “crumbled” during an interview with Aussie chat show, Sunday Night HD, causing some gossip hounds to report B is wearing a fake belly while a surrogate actually carries her baby. Without entertaining the rumors with a drawn out explanation, Beyoncé’s publicist sent a brief statement to ABC, calling the reports “Stupid, ridiculous and false.”