Official #LWYMMDvideo world premiere.
Sunday 8/27 at the @vmas pic.twitter.com/tjAxr8qdsY— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 25, 2017
Taylor Swift’s return to music has been one huge botched rollout, for a myriad of reasons. Her return single “Look What You Made Me Do” has been received poorly, to say the least, there was some controversy about whether a not her album was meant to release on the anniversary of the death of Kanye West’s mother — Taylor’s reps say there is no correlation despite the date being the same — and last but not least, she’s been accused of copying and stealing from Beyonce.
For the BeyHive, stealing from Bey might be the cardinal sin, and when Taylor released a teaser for the “Look What You Made Me Do” video on social media, there was a distinct similarity to some of the scenes in Beyonce’s famed “Formation” video from last year. Granted, the preview was just a 20-second, cut up look at the video, which will release in full at the MTV VMAs on Sunday night, but still, the similarity is hard to ignore.
This is what happens when #Beyonce needs a Snickers. Y'all gotta stop this. #Taylor #Beyhive #AppropriationLikeAMF pic.twitter.com/7gNXzYrh7i
— Al Woker (@davehelem) August 26, 2017
So, after the controversy was stirred up the director of the video Joseph Khan has come forward to deny the allegations that he or Taylor stole from Beyonce, while mentioning that there was more to the “Formation” shot seen in the preview. “I’ve worked with Beyoncé a few times. She’s an amazing person. The #LWYMMDvideo is not in her art space. Love and respect to Bey,” Khan said on Twitter. “Also there’s something to that “formation” shot I painted out and you haven’t seen yet. Stay tuned Sunday.”
https://twitter.com/JosephKahn/status/901272624055042048
https://twitter.com/JosephKahn/status/901277684637900800
So, while that likely won’t do much to quiet the noise and the rampant criticism of the new song, at least Khan did his best to try and keep the BeyHive from swarming.
