Beyoncé Knew Nothing About Her Super Bowl Performance Being Hijacked

Beyoncé was unwittingly dragged into a political row after having her Super Bowl performance hijacked by her dancers and activists. The star knew nothing about the decision by members of her dance troupe to join a protest by members of the Black Lives Matters organization on the pitch of the Levi's Stadium about the death of Mario Jones until the video went viral the next morning.

Beyoncé was criticized by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani who said it was outrageous that she would use her platform to attack police officers. But the politician made his remarks without knowing that the 35-year-old singer had been unaware of the protest as she left the field.

It has been revealed that two determined political activists, angered over the shooting of the man by police, smuggled a dozen posters into the arena in their underwear and bags. Only one was handed to several of the dancers who raised it and shouted slogans demanding Justice for Mario Woods. Beyoncé's dancers backed calls for murder charges to be brought against five officers who gunned down former jail bird Woods at exactly the moment that the star was ushered off by her security guards.

Rheema Calloway and Ronnishia Johnson are the two women who were behind the political storm and they seized their moment after winning tickets to Beyoncé's half time show through a local radio station competition. They sneaked in their posters supporting calls for murder charges against five police officers by hiding them in their bras and panties to evade security guards at the sports complex in Santa Clara. They had made several copies of the poster hoping that at least once would make it into the stadium and they might be able to be seen on television. After being bussed to the stadium, they were patted down by security guards at the gates and were surprised when officials did not confiscate the 12 posters from their bags and clothing.

Rheema said: “We were led onto the pitch at half time through a tunnel and it was crazy and breathtaking. The noise from the crowd made me feel like I was Beyoncé. We had never been inside the stadium even though we are local women. But we are both Beyoncé fans. We were behind Beyoncé's dancers and we were walked around them and to the sideline to watch  We did not know Beyoncé was going to have a Black Panther theme to her performance even though she had dropped the Formation video the day before which has a lot of black culture references”. 

Ronnishia added that “When we saw the dancers in their outfits and black berets we were like 'Yes Yes! That was confirmation that we needed to do what we came to do there. After the half time show we were rushed off and our group was headed in another direction. I said to Rheema we had to go and we started running after the dancers. There were a couple of dancers walking out with their fists up so I tapped one of them and asked her initially if she would be willing to take a photo and she said yes. As we were taking a photo I asked he if she had heard about the case of Mario Woods. Other dancers came around us and from the expressions on their faces it seemed as if they had already heard about Mario's case and were empathetic. They agreed to hold the sign and say “Justice for Mario Woods” and we filmed it on my iPhone. We thanked them and then we got rushed off. The whole thing was over in a minute-and-a-half and after we uploaded the video to Instagram and Facebook and it has gone viral. We don't know who the dancers were, but we hope that Beyoncé doesn't have a backlash against them for what they did. Beyoncé was rushed off the stage immediately and she knew nothing about we did”.