Mike Huckabee says he thinks pop superstar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter can "actually sing," but suggests that her husband, music mogul Jay-Z, is acting as her pimp and exploiting her as a "sex object."
The former Arkansas governor, who stepped down from his Fox News Channel show this week to explore a bid for the presidency, released his new book, "
God, Guns, Grits and Gravy," and includes shots at the music industry's royal couple, reports
The Washington Post.
According to an excerpt from the book, printed in
U.S. News & World Report, Huckabee takes on the Grammy-winning couple after their performance of Beyoncé's hit "Drunk in Love" that opened the show to a standing ovation last year.
"My reaction: Why?" Huckabee writes. "Beyoncé is incredibly talented – gifted, in fact. She has an exceptional set of pipes and can actually sing. She is a terrific dancer – without the explicit moves best left for the privacy of her bedroom. Jay-Z is a very shrewd businessman, but I wonder: Does it occur to him that he is arguably crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife as a sex object?"
He also slammed President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, who are close to the A-list couple, asking "how can they let Sasha and Malia listen to that trash?" reports the
Daily Mail.
The first lady took her younger daughter, Sasha, to a Beyoncé concert in July, and the pop star serenaded the Obamas at their first inaugural ball and performed the National Anthem at Obama's second inauguration.
But Huckabee, in his book, complains the singer has gone "X-rated," even though "she proved she doesn't need to lower herself to this type of crude exploitation to be a megastar."
He also complained that millions of girls look up to Beyoncé, "and she even has a daughter herself now. So why has she done this?"
His "pimp" comment has drawn fire from several sources, who blasted it as being racist and divisive.
"Huckabee's attack on Bey and Jay is just a sample of the kind of us-versus-them cultural rhetoric that could be part of the GOP primary race if the Southern Baptist minister jumps in," the
Post's Nia-Malika Henderson wrote Friday. "Don't expect many attempts to make concessions from Huckabee on this front."
Another Post writer,
Alyssa Rosenberg, wrote that Beyoncé has worked under the management of her father and then under another manager until last year, when she fired the manager. Now she manages her career along with running her own company, Parkwood Entertainment.
"Jay-Z may be an influential partner and sometimes-collaborator for his wife," Rosenberg wrote. "But her career has been defined in part by her transition away from being managed and packaged by a member of her own family."
Further, Rosenberg said Huckabee's comment about Jay-Z moving from "husband to pimp" allows the former governor to admire Beyoncé without acknowledging that her performance was probably her idea, and "lets him smear a powerful black male artist and entrepreneur, all in a single lament."
But Huckabee is not the only pundit who has criticized Beyoncé and her racy performances.
Earlier this year, Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly also said she was a bad influence on girls after her "Partition" music video, reports
The Washington Times.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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