A strange claim has been doing the rounds on social media this week that Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign paid superstar singer Beyonce $10 million to attend her Houston rally. Beyonce attended the rally and endorsed Harris but didn’t perform any of her songs, leaving several fans fuming.
The viral claim of Beyonce being paid in millions has now made many assume that the singer didn’t perform because she accepted the money only for her appearance. However, there is no public evidence to support the claim and Federal Election Commission’s latest records also don’t show any such transaction. The claim is completely false just like several others circulating on social media.
The Wild Claim
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The claim first appeared in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on October 27. The post read: “Beyonce told a crowd “I’m not here as a celebrity.” “Her $10M paycheck says she’s full of shit.
The post offered no evidence to back its claim of a $10 million payment.
On October 25, 2024, Beyoncé appeared at the Harris for President rally in Houston, where she delivered a speech. The speech begins at the 23:15 mark in a video posted by C-SPAN, the nonprofit U.S. public broadcaster.
Addressing the audience, she said, “I’m not here as a celebrity. I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” with no suggestion that her appearance at the rally was paid.
When Harris’ processed candidate disbursement filings were reviewed from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by fact checking site Lead Stories, no payments to Beyoncé were found, as shown in this screenshot.
Baseless Claim
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However, the latest filings only cover payments up to September 30, 2024, nearly a month before the Harris rally. The FEC website notes that processing can take days for electronic filings and weeks for paper ones.
The FEC’s raw filing disbursements, which include data through October 17, 2024—eight days prior to the rally—also found no payments to Beyoncé. According to the FEC, this data, taken directly from a committee’s raw electronic reports, has “not yet been categorized and coded” and excludes paper filings.
A Google search for news reports, using the keywords “Beyoncé,” “paid,” “$10 million,” and “Harris rally,” also found no credible news sources reporting that the singer was paid $10 million to attend the rally.
The claim is thus completely false and baseless, much like several false claims being made about Kamala Harris.
