Last night, the 50th annual Country Music Association Awards saw Beyoncé join The Dixie Chicks for a rousing performance of “Daddy Lessons,” off of the former’s smash-hit album Lemonade. By all accounts, the performance was one of the highlights of the night; today, though, the CMA appears to have removed almost every social media mention of the event from its accounts. Tweets celebrating the performance appear to have been deleted, while the Dixie Chicks and Beyoncé are both absent from the CMA’s list of performers at last night’s event. ABC’s On-Demand service is still hosting video of the set, but it appears to have been removed from every official online venue where commenters might be able to discuss it.
According to TMZ, that’s because those comments were becoming a problem for the CMAs, thanks to some racist and vitriolic content largely aimed at Beyoncé’s support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The CMAs haven’t released a statement about the decision, but TMZ claims to have a source saying that the organization’s members “just want this to go away.”
That seems unlikely, though, especially since The Dixie Chicks have posted their own recording of the event on SoundCloud, along with a tweet that hoped to “drown out the hate.”
UPDATE: In a statement obtained by US Weekly, the Country Music Awards organizers say rumors of the Queen Bey’s disappearance have been slightly exaggerated. They now claim that while an unauthorized promo has been removed, the joint performance has not been scrubbed from its social media existence.
CMA has not erased any mentions of Beyoncé’s performance on the CMA Awards. In advance of the broadcast, CMA removed a five-second promotional clip from ABC.com and CMA’s Facebook page. The promo was unapproved and CMA removed it prior to the broadcast. Beyoncé’s performance with Dixie Chicks was a highlight of the evening and we are continuing to share the amazing full-length performance clip via our official social channels.