Beyoncé Didn’t Perform at DNC: Surprise Guest Meme Round-up

White House political director Emmy Ruiz put the Beyhive on alert on Thursday afternoon by tweeting a single bee emoji. With multiple outlets suggesting that there were rumors a surprise guest had been booked for the final night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, people immediately began speculating that Beyoncé would perform before Kamala Harris officially accepted the presidential nomination. It made sense: Bey has approved the use of her song “Freedom” on Harris’s campaign trail (in contrast, her team reportedly threatened to send a cease-and-desist letter after a Donald Trump spokesperson used a clip of “Freedom” in a now-deleted social media post).

Mitt Romney, who emerged as another popular prediction, denied on social media that he was the surprise guest, tweeting, “My guess is that it will be Beyoncé or Taylor Swift.” Some stans started dreaming even bigger, hoping Bey and Tay would perform a duet. But the primary suspect still seemed to be Beyoncé, with TMZ even reporting that she was in Chicago to perform. However, not long before Harris took the stage, Beyoncé’s publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, took to Instagram to share a screenshot of a Hollywood Reporter piece in a later-deleted post. The THR report cited a rep who confirmed that Beyoncé “was never scheduled” to attend and would not take the stage. And it soon became apparent that there was in fact no surprise guest at all. TMZ later tweeted, “To quote the great Beyoncé: We gotta lay our cards down, down, down … we got this one wrong.” Be honest, Democrats, was this a plot to get stans to tune in all night? Because it worked. Below, the best memes and predictions from throughout the night.