Photographers at the star-studded Kobe Bryant memorial service in Los Angeles were reportedly banned from taking pictures of Beyonce Knowles-Carter.
Beyonce (right) is pictured at the memorial service with her longtime publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, before departing the arena.
20,000 fans and hordes of stars flocked to the Staples Center for the live-streamed memorial to basketball legend Kobe, 41, and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna Bryant, who were killed along with seven others in a helicopter crash last month.
Beyonce, 39, opened the memorial with stirring performances of her hit songs “XO” and “Halo,” which Kobe’s wife Vanessa Bryant says were among his favorite tunes.
But photographers from the Associated Press and Getty Images told the New York Post that organizers of the event banned 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 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 the semi-retired cabana singer have yet to respond to the claims.
It’s widely known that the mother-of-three only releases pictures she approves of, taken at certain at angles, and Photoshopped to perfection by an official photographer after the Internet made a mockery of her 2013 Super Bowl performance when news outlets publishing “unflattering” images of her.
