Beyoncé’s mom Tina Knowles is clearing up rumors that she disagreed with Dolly Parton over her daughter’s Country Music Awards snub.
“This is fake not from me!” Tina, 70, commented under an Instagram post by the celebrity news account The Neighborhood Talk on Thursday, September 19, in response to a screenshot of a comment attributed to her.
The fake comment in question appeared to take issue with Parton’s stance on Beyoncé receiving no nominations at the CMAs for her country-inspired album, Cowboy Carter. Parton recently said that she didn’t think the CMAs were “shutting out” Beyoncé “on purpose.”
Parton, 78, also questioned whether awards voters simply opted for other artists who have been recording country music their entire careers.
“Oh Ms. Dolly, we love you, but Bey did spend her WHOLE life workin’ hard since she was 9! She got country roots too,” the comment purported to be from Tina reads. “She’s mastered her craft and broken records in EVERY genre. So sayin’ she didn’t ’spend her life’ in country music dismisses all the work she put in.”
“Bey don’t need to stay in one lane to get respect — her talent and work ethic speak for themselves! She’s been puttin’ in the work, and nobody else gets asked to ‘spend their life’ in one place to be recognized! #beencountry,” the fabricated comment continued.
In an interview with Variety published on Tuesday, September 17, Parton said she didn’t think Beyoncé was intentionally snubbed from country music’s biggest night.
“Well, you never know. There’s so many wonderful country artists that I guess, probably, the country music field, they probably thought, ‘Well, we can’t really leave out some of the ones that spend their whole life doing that,’” the “9 to 5” singer said.
Parton admitted she initially “didn’t even realize” that Beyoncé, 43, didn’t get any recognition for Cowboy Carter, which features a cover of Parton’s iconic song “Jolene.”
“But it was a wonderful album. She can be very, very proud of, and I think everybody in country music welcomed her and thought that that was good,” Parton continued. “So I don’t think it was a matter of shutting out, like, doing that on purpose.”
While Beyoncé has yet to publicly comment on her lack of nominations, her father and former manager Mathew Knowles criticized the move in an interview with TMZ on September 9.
“There’s more white people in America and unfortunately they don’t vote based on ability and achievements,” he said. “It’s still sometimes a white and Black thing.”
Mathew, 72, said the snub “speaks for itself,” adding, “In America, there’s no accountability for people not being accepting of other cultures.”
