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The Carters are in the building ?

A post shared by Golden State Warriors (@warriors) on Jun 5, 2019 at 7:40pm PDT

As we discussed yesterday, Beyonce and Jay-Z attended Game 3 of the NBA Finals. They sat courtside, and they happened to be seated next to Joe Lacob and his wife Nicole Curran. Lacob owns the Golden State Warriors, one of the most successful franchises of the NBA. None of that was the point though. The point of the story was that Nicole and Beyonce were seated beside each other and Nicole leaned over Beyonce to talk to Jay-Z. ESPN posted a very short clip of the LEAN IN, and the Beyhive was convinced that Beyonce seemed uncomfortable with Curran leading over her to speak to Jay. This discomfort was seemingly confirmed when, after Curran’s lean, Beyonce sort of bumped Curran’s shoulder to get her out of her space. Plus, the look on Beyonce’s face was just… classic.

Jay-Z and Beyoncé are courtside for Game 3 ? pic.twitter.com/6mmJuN8Odn

— ESPN (@espn) June 6, 2019

So the whole thing became A THING and the Beyhive pounced, as they are wont to do. To be clear, 99.9% of the time, the Beyhive “pounces” by… sending bee emojis and making Becky jokes. That’s what I saw in the hours following The Lean: Curran’s Instagram comments were flooded with bee emojis:

I stay up at night wondering if a single human on this planet will ever love me as much as the Beyhive loves Beyonce pic.twitter.com/rf0ROKrtGp

— KB (@KaraRBrown) June 6, 2019

Yall the BeyHive is CARRYING on Nicole Curran’s Instagram ?????? #Beyonce #NicoleCurran pic.twitter.com/4UZyA5cqjc

— Raffy Regulus the Enbydexterous (@raffy_regulus) June 6, 2019

It happens literally all the time. The Beyhive monitors their queen and jumps to her defense constantly. They are hyper-vigilant. They swarm and bee-emoji attack the likes of Kid Rock and Tamera Mowry-Housley and they still have their eye on Becky With the Good Hair. But I guess Nicole Curran has never been swarmed before. She tried to do damage control by posting this to her Instagram:

When I saw that IG yesterday, she had already disabled the comments so that post would not be swarmed with bee-emojis and skulls. It was a bad photo to use, right? Because it’s another photo where Curran seems to be invading Beyonce’s personal space. Anyway, at some point on Thursday, Curran just deactivated her social media accounts and then she ended up pleading with the Beyhive to leave her alone:

Just spoke to Nicole Curran, the wife of Warriors owner Joe Lacob, about the “incident “ with Beyoncé last night. She was in tears. Said she had been getting death threats on social media all night this morning she disabled her IG account just to make it stop.

— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) June 6, 2019

Curran said she had no idea anything was even amiss until she got home and started seeing texts from friends and checked her social media. She’s invited Jay Z and Beyoncé to the game 3-4 times before. Last night she says she asked if they wanted drinks. Beyoncé asked for water

— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) June 6, 2019

Curran says Jay Z asked for a vodka soda. She asked if he wanted lime with that. But it was loud in Oracle and she couldn’t hear, so she leaned over. That’s where the photos of Beyoncé looking askance at her come from.

— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) June 6, 2019

Curran says she then went to go get them those drinks. “There was no hostility. I was trying to be a good hostess,” she said. “I’ve never experienced cyber bullying like this. I can’t believe our players go through this. That kids go through this.“

— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) June 6, 2019

Do you buy this or nah? I think Curran was definitely shocked by the reaction of the Hive, and I think what happened to her definitely constitutes cyberbullying. I also buy that whatever was happening in that clip was probably pretty innocent in Curran’s mind, although I’m still analyzing Beyonce’s body language, you know? The thing is, I feel like this situation just could have been something fun and funny, like “OMFG did you see Beyonce give a little shoulder-bump to the woman who leaned over her?” and then it turned into something really rough.

Also: there were a lot of people wondering why Beyonce hasn’t said anything directly about this situation, but I don’t think it’s particularly notable that Bey hasn’t released anything in her own name – she rarely, if ever, does that. Bey rarely speaks on behalf of Bey. What she did do was authorize her publicist Yvette Noel-Schure to post an Instagram message reading: “I am looking back today at the start of The OTRII tour, one year ago. It was a place of joy, unimaginable entertainment from two of the best performers in the world, and a place of love. Every single day on that tour I saw love. Which is why I also want to speak here to the beautiful BeyHive. I know your love runs deep but that love has to be given to every human. It will bring no joy to the person you love so much if you spew hate in her name. We love you.” Basically: we love how much you love Queen B but you guys have to chill.

Nicole Curran says she’s getting death threats over viral Beyoncé photo https://t.co/xlWADzu9nt pic.twitter.com/KmLibPFcCQ

— Page Six (@PageSix) June 6, 2019

Beyonce & Jay-Z are taking in some #NBAFinals action. ?

(?: @nba) pic.twitter.com/z5yaC7CIir

— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) June 6, 2019

Photos courtesy of social media.