Following the release of Beyoncé’s new album “Lemonade,” far-right commentators went on the attack. For years, the singer has drawn the ire of conservatives from Mike Huckabee to Alex Jones, who have responded to her music with bizarre conspiracy theories and irrational anger.
In honor of Beyoncé’s new album, we’ve collected 10 of the Right’s craziest attacks on her.
1) Brain-eating CIA Plant
InfoWars host and Donald Trump ally Alex Jones made waves this week when he told his fans that Beyoncé is participating in a CIA plan to spur violence and mayhem in order to give the federal government a justification for taking over local police forces.
InfoWars dubbed the plot “the Beyoncé ‘urban terrorism’ psy-op.”
Jones told his listeners that Beyoncé is a “devil-worshiping” musician who “acts like a psychopath” and whose music is “designed to absolutely ruin [children’s] lives on purpose.”
He even went so far as to plead with black people to “stop killing your kids and get them in church, whatever, take them away from Beyoncé, who wants to eat their brain with the CIA, literally.”
2) ‘Toxic Mental Poison’
Before deciding to run for president, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee released a book titled “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy,” in which he criticized President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for letting their children listen to Beyoncé, calling the musician out for her “obnoxious and toxic mental poison in the form of song lyrics.” He also compared Beyoncé to a prostitute.
Despite chastising Beyoncé for her sexual lyrics, Huckabee seemed to have no problem performing a sexually explicit song with Ted Nugent, a musician not exactly known for his wholesomeness, on his Fox News program, “Huckabee.”
Huckabee defended himself by falsely claiming that Nugent “changed the lyrics pretty dramatically when he sang it on the stage that time.” However, anyone who watches the program can clearly see Huckabee accompanying Nugent while he sings about how he can “make the pussy purr.”
3) Possessed By The Devil
American Family Radio host Bryan Fischer said that Beyoncé used “a number of Satanic symbols” in her 2013 Super Bowl performance, claiming that her “facial features changed” and “she had this look on her face — she went from being the girl next door and light and bubbly to something dark and malevolent.”
Fischer concluded that Beyoncé is possessed by the devil and that her alter ego Sasha Fierce is “a demonic spirit.”
4) Like Someone In An Insane Asylum
Kevin Swanson, the radically anti-gay pastor courted by Ted Cruz, arrived at a similar conclusion as Fischer, telling listeners to his “Generations Radio” program in 2014 that Sasha Fierce is a demonic entity.
“That’s multiple personality or that’s demon possession or that’s psychosis,” he said of Beyoncé. “People used to have to be taken off to insane asylums if they introduced other characters in their lives, these are people who are going to wind up in insane asylums, mental institutes for things like demon possession or psychosis.”
5) Like A Ku Klux Klan Member
When Beyoncé performed at this year’s Super Bowl, Fox News’ favorite sheriff, David Clarke of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, said that while he is someone who tries not “to overreact to things,” he was so upset by Beyoncé’s performance that he compared it to “a white band” performing “in hoods and white sheets.”
6) Race War
Tomi Lahren of Glenn Beck’s The Blaze joined the chorus of Beyoncé critics by slamming the musician for “ramrodding an aggressive agenda down our throats” at the Super Bowl.
“You’re just like President Obama, Jada Pinkett Smith, Al Sharpton and so many others just can’t let America heal, keep ripping off the historical Band-Aid,” she said. “Why be a cultural leader when you can play the victim, right?”
Lahren was particularly upset that Beyoncé tried to “perpetuate the great battle of the races” when her “husband was a drug dealer.” “Talk about protecting black neighborhoods? Start at home,” she said.
7) Paving The Way For The Antichrist
Sandy Rios of the American Family Association and American Family Radio was appalled by Beyoncé’s “Formation” music video, calling it “disgusting” and “crass, crass, crass.”
“It’s not only stoking the fires of racism, just stoking hatred, black hatred towards whites and towards policemen, it’s also just crass sexually. It’s like you need a bath. What is this beautiful girl doing, doing this?” she asked.
Rios eventually concluded that Beyoncé’s “in-your-face black racism” and “cop hatred” will “undermine the law and order of our country.”
And this descent “into lawlessness,” Rios explained, is “a sign of the Last Days” and the coming of the “Man of Lawlessness,” or the Antichrist.
“The Man of Lawlessness will reign,” she said. “Lawlessness, the breakdown in respect and honor. And so Beyoncé, who could be such an example to women everywhere, and I don’t care black or white, conducting herself with dignity with all that God has given her, her beauty and her natural talents, instead twisting it into something that is very ugly and very profane.”
8) An Attack On Police Officers
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani couldn’t resist disparaging Beyoncé’s “outrageous” and “terrible” Super Bowl show, claiming that she was putting black lives and law enforcement officers at risk when she used the event “as a platform to attack police officers.”
9) Promotes Sex Trafficking And Death
Conservative author Larry Tomczak published a rather negative review of “Lemonade” this week:
This idol is not a "role model" for our youth, and this misdirected honor needs to end.
Her new album Lemonade is scandalous. One song titled "Hold Up" features her as a rage-filled maniac brandishing a baseball bat while smiling children watch. In her rampage, she smashes car windows, destroys automobiles, explodes a fire hydrant, busts business windows and obliterates a police surveillance camera. Fires erupt as she spits out expletives in vengeful glee.
This is disgraceful conduct, and her placement in the "Parthenon of Superstar Idols" needs to come down. This isn't entertainment, it's an outrage, and it's idolatry if we justify it. Our impressionable children are at stake.
“Pray for Beyoncé as she spirals out of control,” he continued. “Let's learn lessons from the demise of American Idol, Bowie and Prince.”
Back in 2014, Tomczak claimed that Beyoncé’s music would “lead naive young girls on a dangerous path that could lead some even into sex trafficking” and ultimately “abuse, abortions and abasement — sometimes death.”
10) ‘Urban Terrorist’
Leave it to Matt Drudge to accuse Beyoncé of being an “urban terrorist” because of her music video “Hold Up.”
