Thursday night was supposed to be Kamala Harris’ night at the Democratic National Convention, but much of the evening was spent anticipating a Beyoncé appearance that never came.
Rumors about the pop star attending the event were circulating all week, and they reached a fever pitch on Thursday when some scheduling changes seemed to leave a spot in the schedule for a special guest. Alas, Queen Bey did not make the trip to Chicago.
On Friday’s show, Megyn was joined by Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke of National Review to discuss what was behind the hearsay and why it may have been an intentional fake out.
The Rumors
There were celebrity appearances (see: Oprah Winfrey, Kerry Washington, Mindy Kaling) and performances (i.e. Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Patti LaBelle) throughout the week at the DNC, but none created more buzz than the hope of Beyoncé stopping by.
There was a flurry of what proved to be erroneous reports suggesting the Grammy winner would be a surprise performer to close out the convention after Harris’ address. That speculation gained more steam when Pink, who was previously announced as the evening’s headliner, was moved up in the lineup.
MSNBC’s Katie Phang, for one, was breathlessly posting now-deleted tweets claiming the songstress was on the ground in the Windy City and inside the United Center – even after it had been confirmed she would not be in attendance.
Beyoncé’s team threw cold water on the chatter around 7pm ET. “Beyoncé was never scheduled to be there,” her rep told The Hollywood Reporter. “The report of a performance is untrue.”
Some 12 hours later, Phang announced on X that she was taking down all of her false reporting because it wasn’t up to par. “Just wanted to let folks know I deleted the tweet about Beyoncé from last night,” she wrote. “It didn’t meet with our standards for reporting and despite it being shared in good faith, getting it accurate is more important.”
And she wasn’t alone. TMZ had to admit it got its scoop wrong after the outlet wrongly claimed Beyoncé was in Chicago. And the popular anonymous X account @angry_staffer – which is believed to run by a former White House employee – also issued a mea culpa after it had helped spark the Queen Bey rumors by tweeting the final day of the DNC was not to be missed because of an appearance by someone with star power.
Ultimately, the only Beyoncé the DNC crowd got to enjoy was the recording of her song “Freedom” that played as Harris entered and exited the stage.
‘It Was a Ruse’
While the whole ‘will she, won’t she’ situation was awkward, Megyn said she thinks it was by design. “I think they released the lie about Beyoncé allegedly showing up at the event last night because they wanted to boost ratings,” she explained. “You would be absolutely stupid to say she is coming when you know she is not coming, if it didn’t have a real purpose and was something that helped you.”
While Lowry admitted he hadn’t considered the possibility that the Democrats were in on the fake out, he said it wouldn’t be surprising. “Kamala is not like a [Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan] who just rises to the top on sheer talent, or verbal acuity, or shamelessness,” he noted. “There is no there there, so they have to manufacture it.”
The ratings will tell the full story, but Megyn believes there was a method to the madness. “I think the whole ‘Beyoncé is coming, she is not coming’ thing was a ruse,” she concluded. “It does make sense if your goal is to boost the numbers.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Lowry and Cooke by tuning in to episode 869 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.