Did Beyoncé publicly confirm she will move to Italy because she can't "breathe the same air as Elon Musk"? No, that's not true: An AI generated viral article reused a fake quote previously attributed to Oprah Winfrey in another false story. Neither credible media outlets nor the singer's official pages discussed the purported relocation as of March 26, 2025.
The claim originated from an article (archived here) published by Insightflowmedia on March 26, 2025, under the title:
Beyoncé Decides to End Legendary Show, Plans to Move to Italy: 'I CAN'T LIVE IN THE US FOR THE NEXT 4 YEARS AND BREATHE THE SAME AIR AS ELON MUSK.'
It began:
In an exciting development, global music icon Beyoncé has announced a new chapter in her life and career, sparking curiosity and excitement among fans. The award-winning artist recently revealed her plans to step away from her current concert series and explore creative opportunities in Italy.
This is what the article looked like on Insightflowmedia at the time of writing:
(Source: Insightflowmedia screenshot taken on Wed Mar 26 21:42:13 2025 UTC)
The article did not link specific statements and did not describe how the website learned about the supposed announcement.
A search across Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) did not show relevant articles published between January 1 and March 26, 2025, that would confirm the supposed relocation.
Beyonce's account on Instagram manually reviewed by Lead Stories said nothing about the purported move to Italy.
The singer's official website (archived here) showed several concerts in Europe scheduled for the summer of 2025, but the list did not include Italy.
The headline of the article reviewed in this fact check reused a quote previously attributed to Oprah Winfrey in a different piece debunked by Lead Stories here.
Four AI detection tools -- ChatGPT Zero, Quillbot, Scribbr and Grammarly's detector -- confirmed that the story was generated by generative ai tools:
(Source: ChatGPT Zero screenshot taken in Wed Mar 26 21:23:53 2025 UTC)
(Source: Quillbot screenshot taken on Wed Mar 26 22:07:54 2025 UTC)
(Source: Scribbr screenshot taken on Wed Mar 26 21:32:00 2025 UTC)
(Source: Grammarly screenshot taken on Wed Mar 26 21:39:23 2025 UTC)
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Other Lead Stories fact checks about entertainment can be found here.
