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Beyonce[1] is not writing a movie about Saartjie Baartman in an effort to win an Oscar, despite a widely spread yet entirely inaccurate report. Gossip Cop can exclusively correct the claim. We're told Beyonce is "not connected" to the film.
According to a report in The Sun, which was picked up by a slew of other outlets, Beyonce has "hired a team of acting coaches and writers to put together a movie about Saartjie Baartman," a real-life South African woman who was exhibited in European "freak shows" in the 1800s because of her large behind. The tabloid then quotes an ill-informed "Hollywood source" claiming Beyonce wants to do a film about Baartman because she's "desperate to be taken seriously as an actress."
The paper's same supposed "source" further alleges that Beyonce "now wants to write a screenplay that gains her respect, and hopefully awards, from the film industry, and thinks Saartjie's story could be her ticket." "Winning an Academy Award would mean everything to her, and she's a woman who is used to getting exactly what she wants," adds the tabloid's so-called "source."
And while Baartman, whose stage name was Hottentot Venus, was forced to appear in these carnival shows against her will, the British tabloid and other outlets used her body shape to make a series of crass remarks. The Sun writes that Beyonce's plan to star as Baartman is "unfortunate for Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj, who would no doubt have wanted to audition."
Clearly, since the newspaper didn't have any real facts, it filled its space with nonsense about how Beyonce "did coin the term Bootylicious, so she knows her stuff in this area," and editorializes that it hopes her film doesn't "hit a bum note."
Irrespective of the insensitive rearend jokes, the entire story is 100 percent inaccurate. The singer's rep exclusively tells Gossip Cop, "Beyoncé is not connected to this project, but this is a very important story to be told."
