The photographers were informed that they were not allowed to take pictures of Beyonce Knowles during the public memorial service at the Staples Center.
- February 26, 2020
AceShowbiz - Photographers at the Kobe Bryant memorial in Los Angeles on Monday, February 24, 2020 were reportedly banned from taking pictures of Beyonce Knowles.
Hordes of stars flocked to the Staples Center for the live-streamed memorial to basketball player Kobe and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, who was killed in a helicopter crash last month.
Beyonce opened the memorial with a performance of her hit songs "XO" and "Halo", but snappers from the Associated Press and Getty Images told the New York Post that organisers of the event prohibited them from taking pictures of the singer or Kobe's children.
"A Staples Center staffer was dispatched to make sure not a single camera was focused on the stage," a source told the publication's gossip column Page Six. "The photographers couldn't believe it. This doesn't help Beyonce's image at all, it hurts her. It makes her look like a diva. The memorial wasn't about her. The only shots of Bey that did emerge were screen grabs from TV. None of the other artists at the memorial asked for this, not Christina Aguilera, not Alicia Keys."
Representatives for Beyonce have yet to respond to the claims.
It's widely known that the mother-of-three only releases pictures she approves taken by an official photographer at her shows to be after her 2013 Super Bowl performance was marred by news outlets publishing articles featuring a series of "unflattering" images of the star mid-performance. The photos were taken by Getty.
