OK, here’s what we know:
On Sunday Aug. 28, the MTV Video Music Awards will take place at Madison Square Garden, and be televised on MTV.
So far, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Future, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj are all scheduled to perform, among others.
Beyoncé’s name isn’t there—yet.
We have reason to think, however, that Queen Bey will in fact grace that stage. And it’s not just because we want it to be true.
Here’s the growing pile of evidence:
Most importantly, how could she not? 🍋
2016 was clearly the year of Lemonade, and Beyoncé’s epic visual album leads the nominations with 11, in categories including Video of the Year (“Formation), Best Female Video (“Hold Up”), and Breakthrough Long Form Video to Say Exactly What Everyone Needed to Hear At Precisely the Moment They Need It—no just kidding, that last one was just Breakthrough Long Form Video, which is still a new category MTV kind of invented for Lemonade. (The “visual album” format isn’t new, but Beyoncé perfected it.)
How could Beyoncé just sit in the audience with the momentum of the “Formation” video’s surprise drop, followed by her Super Bowl performance, Lemonade‘s game-changing release, and the epic world tour that has followed? I just don’t believe Bey would do that to us.
The Beyhive is buzzing
After stating they had it from a “rock solid source” that Beyoncé would perform, the super-fans @TheBeyHiveTeam have been populating their Twitter stream with supporting evidence.
Us Magazine has “multiple sources” on this too. We want to believe.
There are reports of her rehearsing
Jordan Edwin André, a cast member with the stage production of Dirty Dancing (How did that take so long to happen, btw?) tweeted about Beyoncé and her dancers rehearsing nearby. Another cast member appears to have tweeted something similar, and then deleted it. Was that because he erred, or because he didn’t want to blow Bey’s cover? We don’t know, but the Beyhive obviously has a screenshot.
Her dancers and choreographers have been spotted in New York City
As per the BeyHive:
She seems VMA nostalgic
Exhibit A: Beyoncé posted a video of herself interviewing the late R&B star Aaliyah on the VMAs red carpet in 2000. Thursday (Aug. 25) was also the 15-year anniversary of the plane crash that killed Aaliyah, who Beyoncé has called “the very first person to embrace Destiny’s Child.”
That’s all I got there.
She’s so ready
Bey has a whole album of new material to choose from and has been playing arenas around the world since April—with a three week break since her last show. Come on.
She also recently updated her website with a song-by-song guide to Lemonade—that seems like a helpful reference for anyone who’s been on another planet since April, and might be meeting the music for the first time (live?) on Sunday. Plus there is new Lemonade merchandise, including a “dad hat” that I’m totally going to get for my mom.
MTV allegedly gave her the keys to the car
The BeyHive says MTV gave Bey as much time as she wants to perform. With good reason, after she did this—for more than 17 minutes!—in 2014. (Kanye is rumored to get four minutes, which seems a feeble attempt at limiting liability on MTV’s part.)
Like last year, the Video Music Awards will be pretty impossible to watch without a cable subscription, so get thee to a friend’s house if you don’t have one! There are plenty of reasons to watch the VMAs: fashion schadenfreude, pop star feuds, Kanye making it awkward, and outrageous live performances (both good and bad).
But the possibility of experiencing in real time the moment that Beyonce storms the stage and brings us a live rendition of Lemonade is far and away the best one. And there’s always this: Neither MTV nor Beyoncé has denied it.