Rachel Roy, the fashion designer alleged to be the target of Beyonce’s new album “Lemonade,” won’t be coming to the spring Chicago Humanities Festival after all.
The festival announced Wednesday that Roy canceled her appearance in the April 30 “Style Matters” panel “due to a family matter.”
The panel’s other announced participants — designer Maria Pinto, editor Carol Saller, reporter Jennifer Schuessler, graphic designer Jude Stewart, and art historian Gillion Carrara — all remain on the schedule.
Since the weekend debut of Beyonce’s album and its accompanying movie, which includes lyrics attacking “Becky with the good hair,” speculation has bubbled that she was addressing an affair by her husband Jay-Z, and that Roy was the mistress.
Her subsequent Instagram photo referencing the “good hair” line was flooded by comments from the Beyhive, and she followed up by deleting the post and issuing a statement responding to the rumors.
“I want to put the speculation and rumors to rest. My Instagram post was meant to be fun and lighthearted, it was misunderstood as something other than that,” Roy said. “There is no validity to the idea that the song references me personally. There is no truth to the rumors.
