Beyoncé Responds to Billboard Awards Performance Controversy

Beyoncé wowed millions of viewers with her interactive performance of “Run the World (Girls)” at Sunday’s Billboard Music Awards. But soon after she was faced with accusations of copying a previous performer. The Millennium Award recipient is speaking out following the barrage of criticism.

The pop superstar’s projection-based set drew comparisons to a 2010 performance by Italian singer Lorella Cuccarini. But B was aware of her predecessor. “My makeup artist showed me the performance of Lorella Cuccarini a year ago, and it inspired me so much,” she told AOL Music. “I then met with the talented people who worked on it. The technology and concept were so genius.”

She was inspired after discovering Cuccarini’s performance online. “Thank God for YouTube or I would have never been exposed to something so inspiring,” she added. “I never worked so hard on anything in my life as that performance for the Billboard Awards.”

One of the men behind the show stopper was new media artist and film director Kenzo Digital. He met with Beyoncé and worked non-stop on the production for a month before bringing it to life in Las Vegas. “[The Cuccarini artists] are awesome and do incredible work as well, but there are a lot of different inspirations for where our piece came from,” he told Yahoo! Amplifier.

“If anything, it’s a great example of how great of a performer Beyoncé is. It’s just a bare white screen. It’s a technique in video art since the ’80s in terms of frontal projection and interactive things. That’s really nothing new. It’s not even a new technology. It’s just an incredibly simple, awesome storytelling device, and with a performer like Beyoncé it becomes incredibly powerful.”

Kenzo hopes that fans will be able to relive the performance when B tours to promote her upcoming album 4. “It would be awesome,” he said, “but I don’t know what’s in store exactly.”