Fact check: Trump calls to prosecute Beyoncé based on a nonexistent $11 million payment

CNN

3 days ago

President Donald Trump called Saturday for the prosecution of music superstar Beyoncé – based on something that did not actually happen.
Trump claimed in a social media post that Beyoncé broke the law by supposedly getting paid $11 million for her endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during an October 2024 event in Houston. But there is simply no basis for Trump's claim that Beyoncé received an $11 million payment related to the Harris campaign, let alone for the endorsement in particular.
Federal campaign spending records show a $165,000 payment from the Harris campaign to Beyoncé's production company, which the campaign listed as a 'campaign event production' expense. A Harris campaign spokesperson told Deadline last year that they didn't pay celebrity endorsers, but were required by law to cover the costs connected to their appearances.
Regardless of the merits of this particular $165,000 expenditure, it's far from an $11 million one. Nobody has ever produced any evidence for the claim of an eight-figure endorsement payment to Beyoncé since the claim that it was '$10 million' began spreading last year among Trump supporters on social media. Fact-check websites FactCheck.org and PolitiFact looked into the '$10 million' claim during the campaign and did not find any basis for it.
The White House did not immediately respond to a CNN request late Saturday for any evidence of Trump's $11 million figure. When Trump previously invoked the baseless figure, during an interview in February, he described his source in the vaguest of terms: 'Somebody just showed me something. They gave her $11 million.'
A Harris spokesperson referred CNN on Saturday to a November social media post by Beyoncé's mother Tina Knowles, who called the claim of a $10 million payment a 'lie' and noted it was taken down by Instagram as 'False Information.'
'When In Fact: Beyonce did not receive a penny for speaking at a Presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harrris's (sic) Rally in Houston,' Knowles wrote.
A spokesperson for Beyoncé told PolitiFact in November that the claim about a $10 million payment is 'beyond ridiculous.'
Trump revived the false claim in a social media post published after midnight early Sunday morning in Scotland, where he is visiting. He wrote that he is looking at 'the fact' that Democrats 'admit to paying, probably illegally, Eleven Million Dollars to singer Beyoncé for an ENDORSEMENT.'
Democratic officials actually reject the claim of an $11 million payment. The White House did not immediately respond to CNN's request for any evidence of a Democratic admission of such a payment.
Trump went on to criticize other payments from the Harris campaign to organizations connected to prominent endorsers. He asserted without evidence that these payments were inaccurately described in spending records. And he wrongly asserted that it is 'TOTALLY ILLEGAL' to pay for political endorsements, though no federal law forbids endorsement payments.
Trump concluded: 'Kamala, and all of those that received Endorsement money, BROKE THE LAW. They should all be prosecuted! Thank you for your attention to this matter.'
Trump has repeatedly called for the prosecution of political opponents. His Saturday post about Harris and celebrity endorsements was an escalation from a post in May, when he said he would call for a 'major investigation' on the subject but did not explicitly mention prosecutions.