Dear Gossips,
A couple of weeks ago, when Disney released the cast photo for The Lion King – you know, the one featuring all the other actors and Beyoncé in the centre, where she should be? – a handful of people in my inbox and my mentions tried it; they tried arguing that Beyoncé was present for the group shoot, that she wasn’t photoshopped into the shot. As if the Queen would stand around waiting for everyone else to get their poses right when her pose, off the top, would immediately be perfect.
Not that we needed confirmation but we do now have confirmation: John Oliver was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night and he explains that, yes, indeed, at no point were he and Beyoncé actually side by side in person to take the photo. As John says, “That’s only appropriate that there’s a significant gap between me and the actual Queen”. And then he goes on to compare Beyoncé to Queen Elizabeth II, joking that, of course, Beyoncé is the true royalty. Or was he joking?
I’ve mentioned this before – John Oliver will always find a way to namecheck Beyoncé, at the Emmys, after winning an Emmy, and on talk shows. And the whole cast has found a way to talk about Beyoncé during the press tour in the absence of Beyoncé having to do any conventional press herself. The clip is below, and the whole thing is worth the watch because he and Stephen are always great together, but if you just want the Beyoncé part, it starts at about the 6 minute mark. This is what Disney signed up for when they signed John to the movie. He’s going to be the one to tell us about the photo and casually work in a bit about cocaine while promoting a Disney movie.
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
