Beyonce Is A Cheek

Most tabloid stories read either like transcripts from an extended game of telephone or like telegrams magically generated by the still living brain of a 1930s newspaperman in a jar—that's what makes them so entertaining. But what if you took an Austrian transcript from an extended game of telephone, filtered it through the preserved corpus callosum of a 1930s newspaperman, then translated it into English? What sort of delightful nonsense would you have then? Don't wonder, just read:

From Yahoo News (via The Awl):

US pop star Beyonce has angered a high-brow art museum in Vienna by sending a look-a-like to her own special personal tour of the museum, while she went shopping, according to newspaper reports here Wednesday.

Tabloid dailies Oesterreich and Heute said the R&B diva had been due to visit the Albertina, one of the Austrian capital's most famous museums which attracts around one million visitors each year.

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Recent visitors include Hollywood stars such as Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Nicolas Cage.

But Beyonce, who gave a concert in Vienna on Tuesday, decided to skive off and do some shopping instead, sending a look-a-like to the museum and be photographed with Albertina director, Klaus Albrecht Schroeder, according to the reports.

So, Beyonce scheduled a private tour of a "high-brow" museum in Vienna. It had to be private, because when Beyonce is looking at antique glockenspiels or first editions of Remembrance Of Things Past or exhibits like "Monocles Throughout The Ages" she likes to imagine herself playing those glockenspiels, gingerly placing a bookmark betwixt the pages of those first editions, pressing each one of those rusty monocles between her brow and cheek bones—and having other people around makes that very difficult. But then Beyonce decided she'd rather go shopping. So instead of cancelling the private tour of the high-brow museum, she opted to send one of her many Beyoncalikes (she travels with 20 at all times) to the tour instead—and why not? The Beyoncalikes just sit there in their Louis Vuitton trunks, taking up space in the luggage hold of her private plane. She might as well use them.

Frankly, a rumor like this would be incredible in any language. But the fact that this story was apparently translated directly from Austrian tabloids and includes rarely-used English phrases like, "Skive off"? That's the "What?" icing on an already ridiculous cake.

But then there's this:

The museum was understandably put out and said it would protest to the star's management.

"What a cheek," Albertina spokeswoman Verena Dahlitz told the Austrian news agency APA.

Somehow, I don't think that's exactly what she said—it was probably closer to, "Oy! What a cheek that Beyonce is, guv'nor! Nawhaimean?"  Still, I hope all future gossip will be poorly translated from dubious foreign tabloids. Instead of something like: "Tori Spelling Feuds With Mom," it could be "US Well-Known Tori Spelling Sends Look-A-Like To 'ave It Out Wit Mum."

UPDATE: Turns out the real cheek is the high-brow museum: a radio station sent the body double as a prank, and the museum then blamed the whole thing on Beyonce. This is the body double:

So either the high-brow museum has never seen a picture of Beyonce, or the high-brow museum secretly curates The Hollywood Wax Museum.