Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus gave us an historic moment in pop culture last night when Miley appeared as the special guest on the COWBOY CARTER stage, with the two performing their Grammy-winning duet “II MOST WANTED” live for the first time and left a legion of fans gagged. If you happened to be in the audience, then you basically won the lottery. Beyoncé has historically loved to save the best surprises for her shows in Paris (I don’t even want to TALK about the iconic merch  they are getting). 

 

I had the privilege of attending the single Paris show on the Renaissance tour back in 2023, and that just so happened to be the first time Blue Ivy appeared as a special guest, so try to tell me again that B doesn’t favour Paris. Miley has been in the city of love this week promoting her new album Something Beautiful - so it’s as if the stars aligned for this moment to come to fruition.

 

Miley looked fabulous in a sparkling gold number that matched with B, looking high-fashion and serving some serious face in the process, complementing Beyoncé’s …well… existence frankly. It takes a serious star to be able to stand next to B, and she brought it. The entire album era Miley is in right now is heavily centred on haute couture so it’s no surprise that she put her best supermodel self to work. The hair, the FACE, the strut, the star presence, and most importantly – the vocals. She came correct as one is expected to when invited to perform with the queen. Besides, when Beyoncé introduces you to the crowd as “the icon” and gorgeously gushes over how “grateful” she is to sing with you? You know it’s about to be a diva-off, and I couldn’t breathe. This really f-king happened! Miley has been embracing the huskier side of her voice which allows Beyoncé to come in with her songbird-like tone and let her higher register shine, making for a beautiful country vocal. 

 

Watching the two of them holding hands and embracing each other is a rare type of moment in the diva world. It felt like a modern day iteration of a “Divas Live” performance – watching two women who are at the top of their game and have managed to stay relevant as contemporary artists while still having a strong legacy, just f-king incredible. 

 

It’s no secret that Miley has retreated from performing in stadiums to doing smaller intimate surprise shows – it was a small show for Spotify’s “Billions Club” that brought her to Paris in the first place, but when it comes to Beyoncé? It’s go big or go home - and it felt so rewarding as a fan to have Miley in that light again. Seeing her on stage with the greatest live performer of our time? That was the cherry. Miley may be an icon in her own right, but it was obvious that last night she was still a fan. The fan who as she put it best in her own IG post dedicated to B, “learned from you and loved you my whole life”. Oh honey, we saw that pose when you entered the stage… we can tell and it’s giving DIVA - but also just some good old fashioned girl power. That is part of the reason we all love Miley so much, aside from great songs, she’s real and is a real lover of music and the iconography that is associated with it. Miley also has the distinction of being the first surprise guest as part of the “Cowboy Carter” tour thus far. This isn’t a surprise to me because these two have been showing love and respect to one another for decades at this point, and while we may have gotten the recorded song last year– nothing hits like the real thing. 

 

These two women raised multiple generations of girls, gays, theys (and even some straights lol) - you could hear the literal atmospheric shift in the roars that erupted from the crowd when they stood next to each other. Two iconic girls from the country taking over a world stadium stage is just the type of news we need in 2025.

The road to this moment can be traced back to the Hannah Montana days when a scene from the show featured Miley practicing winning a Grammy and mentioning Beyoncé. The two were also both featured on the collaboration “Just Stand Up’ in 2008 and even performed the song together (along with literally every other female artist). Side bar: I still bump that song on a weekly basis, and it deserves its own viral resurgence. Even in that performance of 13 different female artists, Beyoncé and Miley were next to each other, it was fate. 

 

Fast forward to 2024 and as Miley mentioned in W Magazine about when she got the call to contribute to COWBOY CARTER, clearly Beyoncé’s love for Miley runs deep as she told GQ back in September that she was “obsessed” and a “Smiler”. We now know that Miley’s recent single “Easy Lover” was also offered to Beyoncé, with the then titled “Shotgun Rider” getting chosen. Clearly the bigger diva vocal moment of the two – and if the Grammy win wasn’t enough, last night’s live performance felt like the big payoff. There are too many times when an artist will just hop onto another track with an artist without ever performing the song together or even meeting, and you can hear the lack of chemistry. These two are in it through and through giving us full Thelma & Louise. 

 

Beyoncé just keeps finding new ways to keep her live show exciting, and the fact that she mostly saves her major moments for her own tours make for iconic moments. In a world that moves on so quick from everything, finally seeing B and Miley together, just the two of them is proof that patience is a virtue. 

Beyoncé performed in concert with Miley Cyrus during the 'Cowboy Carter Tour' in Paris on June 19, 2025, and Miley Cyrus was seen out in Paris on June 20, 2025.
Photo credits: Julian Dakdouk via PictureGroup/ Shutterstock, Aissaoui Nacer/ Backgrid

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