In the midst of a growing calls from his own base to release more information about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, President Trump sought to change the subject over the weekend by once again making claims about Beyoncé‘s appearance at a rally for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a lengthy post on his social network, Trump falsely claimed that Beyoncé broke campaign finance laws by allegedly taking home an $11 million check for her endorsement of his democratic presidential rival Harris at her Oct. 2024 rally in Houston. But, as reported by CNN, there is “simply no basis” for the claim that Queen Bey received a multi-million payment from the Harris campaign.
In fact, CNN reported that the only official payment from Harris to the singer was a $165,000 check from the campaign to Beyoncé’s production company, which the campaign listed as a “campaign event production” expense, with a Harris campaign spokesperson telling Deadline last year that due to campaign finance laws, they didn’t pay any celebrity endorsers, but were legally required to cover the costs of their appearances.
The claims that Beyoncé was paid millions of dollars to back Harris began to spread on social media among Trump supporters last year, according to CNN, with a number of fact-checking sites finding no evidence to back it up. When asked for comment, a Harris spokesperson referred to a November Instagram post from Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, in which she wrote, “The lie is that Beyonce was paid 10 million dollars to speak at a rally in Houston for Vice President Kamala Harris. When In Fact : Beyonce did not receive a penny for speaking at a Presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harrris’s Rally in Houston. In fact she actually paid for her own flights for her and her team, and total Glam . They are not only lying and disrespecting Beyonce’s name but they are trying to further discredit the power of our vice president! When does the lies and rumors stop?”
In addition to the appearance, Beyoncé gave Harris clearance to use her 2016 song “Freedom” as the democratic nominee’s official campaign song.
“I’m looking at the large amount of money owed by the Democrats after the presidential election and the fact that they admit to paying, probably illegally, $11 million dollars to singer Beyoncé for an ENDORSEMENT (she never sang, not one note…),” Trump claimed in the most recent Truth Social post, in which he also made unsupported allegations that Oprah Winfrey and civil rights activist Al Sharpton were paid to appear with Harris.
The weekend salvo of claims came two months after Trump’s previous warning that he intended to launch a “major investigation” into his claims that Beyoncé, U2 singer Bono, Bruce Springsteen and Winfrey made what he deemed “major and illegal campaign contribution[s]” to Harris. To date Trump has not provided any evidence of such payments and reps for Springsteen, Bono and Beyoncé have not commented on the allegations. In addition, so far, no news of an such official investigation has surfaced.
A November New York Times investigation found that the celebrity-related expenses at Harris’ rallies went to pay for support staff and production costs, not to the stars themselves. In addition, CNN reported that the White House did not respond to its request for any evidence of a Democratic admission of the claimed $11 million payment. The network also noted that Trump falsely claimed that it is “TOTALLY ILLEGAL” to pay for political endorsements, when, in fact, there is no federal law prohibiting endorsement payments.
The missive came just days after Trump claimed that former President Barack Obama committed “criminal acts,” baselessly accusing the two-term Democrat of “treason” in investigating Russia’s election interference in 2016. The barrage of unsubstantiated claims have coincided with the White House’s weekslong scramble to contain the fall-out from their flip-flop on the release of files related to convicted sex trafficker Epstein after news broke last week that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump in May that his name appeared in the Epstein files.
