Beyonce Pranked Again, Lookalike Infiltrates Vienna Museum

Beyoncé became the victim of yet another prank — her second in a week — when an Austrian radio station sent a Sasha Fierce doppelganger to a Vienna museum to pose as Mrs. Jay-Z. When photos of the faux-Beyoncé at the Albertina art museum began circulating online yesterday, it appeared that the singer sent what looked obviously like an impersonator to the gallery while the real deal simply shopped.

According to Earth Times, the fake Beyoncé was hired by Kronehit radio, which also arranged the private tour of the museum that celebrities like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have enjoyed in the past. Someone pretending to be Beyoncé's manager called the museum asking for the private walk-through within 30 minutes, and then the fake model arrived. "Her face was extremely similar, but her body was totally different," said Verena Dahlitz, the museum's spokeswoman. "We had a grain of doubt that it might have been her because she avoided eye contact with the director, and she acted a little bit strangely." That, and the fact that she looks nothing like Beyoncé.

Last week, Beyoncé was Punk'd by a doctored, off-key audio clip of soundboard recording allegedly from her Today performance last year. Like the case of the Beyoncé doppelganger, that too was quickly exposed as a hoax. "I was just trying to make a point. I wanted to show people how easy it is to manipulate someone's voice," prankster Matthew Zeghibe told Rolling Stone. "If I can do it with a clip I pulled off of TV, imagine what they are doing on records and during live performances. The entire industry has been so manipulated, because there's such an emphasis on perfection, so when something like this happens, it causes such a stir."

As for the Austrian hoax, MTV reports that the radio station said they just wanted to see how people reacted when they saw their replica Beyoncé. So why is B the victim of all these pranks? Rolling Stone's movie critic Peter Travers would argue this is her punishment for starring in the "crazy-ass awful" Obsessed, which he gave zero stars.

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Song Stories

“The A Team”

Ed Sheeran | 2011

This debut track from the then-20-year-old British singer-songwriter has a dark story behind it. Sheeran says he culls songwriting inspiration from "viewing other people's situations," which, for the heroine in "The A Team," involves drug addiction and prostitution that began as a teen. Sheeran paints the woman's trials with haunting imagery such as "But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries." "I did a gig at a homeless shelter, [and the song] is about one of the women there. It's her story," he said.

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