Beyonce is being accused of ripping off artwork featured in her “Renaissance” tour.
Japanese illustrator Hajime Sorayama claims that the Grammy winner did not ask him for permission before allegedly using his sketches and ensembles.
“Yo @beyonce 🤘 You should have asked me “officially” so that I could make much better work for you as like my man @theweeknd,” Sorayama, 76, wrote Monday alongside several photos of his and Beyonce’s visuals.
In one of the photos, the “Break My Soul” singer, 42, can be seen wearing a chrome — which later became the tour’s unofficial dress code — headpiece with what looks to be wires sticking out from the side.
It is currently unclear if Sorayama is pursuing any legal action against the “Halo” songstress.
The Post reached out to both Knowles-Carter and Sorayama for comment.
It was reported by TMZ that many of the fans who attended the star-studded concert initially believed that Sorayama had given Queen B permission to use the design.
Several die-hard Beyonce fans were quick to defend the singer.
“Like you didn’t take direct inspiration from Metropolis,” one fan wrote, referring to the 1927 film.
“Metropolis, Mugler, Gaultier, and more have all done this,” a second person stated. “You don’t own the Android aesthetic.”
“She’s wearing Thierry Mugler based off an archive Mugler look that referenced Metropolis,” a third fan stated. “Were you this incensed when she wore a similar headpiece in 2007 at the BET awards?”
One fan said that they planned to immediately unfollow Sorayama on the social media platform after he had the “nerve” to allege that Beyonce copied him.
Others, however, defended Sorayama.
“Yes ‘Metropolis’ had a robot design but it doesn’t even look like this,” one person stated. “This is a clear ripoff of sorayama’s design.”
“The amount of people essentially being like ‘boo hoo cry about it’ on this post when point blank period someone is benefitting off an image that someone else spent a majority of their life building is CRAZY,” another person said.
“Yes, Metropolis is source inspo, but Hajime Sorayama has quite literally been a master and icon in the art and k!nk world for time, and Beyonce is 10000% referencing it,” a third person defended. “Y’all need to get out of the bee hive and touch grass.”
“Isn’t her team known for ripping off artists,” a fourth person quibbed.
A fifth fan went as far as to call the visuals “robbery.”
In 2011, Beyonce also raised eyebrows when her music video “Countdown” was called out by Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker for allegedly copying her routines.
“This is plagiarism … This is stealing,” De Keersmaeker said in a statement translated from Dutch to English, per Billboard. “What’s rude about it is that they don’t even bother about hiding it. They seem to think they could do it because it’s a famous work.”
She added: “Beyonce is not the worst copycat, she sings and dances very well, and she has good taste!”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
