When April 1 rolls around, everybody’s got to have their guards up. Colin Jost learned that the hard way this year, when Michael Che played an “evil” April Fool’s Day joke on him during Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, and Sarah Polley’s daughter chose violence, sending the Oscar winner a letter to say her award was being rescinded. Usher got in on the fun too, pranking concert-goers at his Saturday show with the promise of a “special surprise” involving Beyoncé, but when Queen Bey failed to take the stage, her fans hit up social media to voice their displeasure.
The “U Got It Bad” singer headlined opening day of the Dreamville Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 1, and at one point, he stopped and asked the audience if they’d heard he’d been hyping a surprise for that night’s performance. He then proceeded to introduce Beyoncé. The April Fool’s Day prank went viral, and you can see it all play out below:
Usher ain’t shit for this Beyonce April Fool’s prank 💀💀 pic.twitter.com/8Scpfu1QjfApril 2, 2023
That was pretty brutal! The crowd went absolutely nuts when Usher called Queen Bey to the stage, and there was some confusion as he pretended to try to convince her to come out. He then returned to center stage, gleefully telling the crowd: “April Fool’s!” The fans roared at having been fooled, but I can definitely see why they believed him. Usher completely sold his performance — so much so that even those who knew it was a prank found themselves thinking Beyoncé might actually be in the house. One Twitter user commented:
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 you was hell for that, here I am at home and I'm even stretching my neck looking for her.. oooooóh .. that was vicious 😆😆😆
You know it’s bad when people who weren’t even at the concert are not just fooled but also mad at how he did that crowd dirty. Another fan tweeted:
I can't forgive him and I wasn't even there
You’d think Usher would know that if you mess with the Beyhive, you’re going to get stung. He seemed all too pleased with himself for pulling off that vicious joke, but one fan on Twitter joked that a strange sound began to fill the park in the immediate aftermath:
*Then a buzzing swarm sound effect begins to permeate the venue*
They even went after his fashion sense, with one commenter speaking out on behalf of the concert’s patrons:
Now why would you.. in this hot ass Cookie Monster suit… ever play with these ppls emotions like that
Many people said it would have been enough to turn them off of Usher altogether:
Lmaooo that would’ve pissed me offff. Might’ve left after that no bs 😒😂
That may seem extreme, but after experiencing that roller coaster of emotion — thinking you’re actually about to see the Grammy Award record-holder perform live on stage, only to realize you’ve been lied to — yeah, I get it. It turns out people were already headed for the door before Usher made his false promises, as one patron tweeted:
People who were leaving came running back when they heard that. That was some cold shit.
I can definitely see why Beyoncé fans would be worked up over Usher’s prank, but also, you’ve got to hand it to the former Voice coach. He fully committed to the April Fool’s Day joke, and he pulled it off with 100% believability. Next year he should really get the “Break My Soul” singer to appear, just to keep everybody on their toes.
In the meantime, you can go back and watch Beyoncè’s Coachella set with a Netflix subscription and check out her visual album Black is King with a Disney+ subscription.
