Congressional candidate claims Beyonce is not African American in bizarre rant

Conservative candidate for Florida KW Miller suggests singer is really Italian and ‘is faking this for exposure’

A US congressional candidate and right-wing conspiracy theorist claimed this weekend that Beyoncé was an Italian woman who “keeps Satanist symbols in her bag”.

In comments that have since been condemned, Florida conservative KW Miller used Twitter to denounce Beyoncé’s black American background and the Black Lives Matter movement.

The candidate for Congress in the state's 18th Congressional District wrote on Saturday that “Beyoncé is not even African American.”

“She is faking this for exposure. Her real name is Ann Marie Lastrassi. She is Italian,” wrote the candidate, who is running for election with no party affiliation.

Mr Miller also claimed that Beyoncé, who he said was “on notice”, had been involved in a “Soros Deep State agenda for the Black Lives Matter movement”.

That Twitter post – which has since been retweeted more than 20,000 times – was tagged with #GreatAwakening, #Trump2020 and #QAnon.

He added on Sunday that QAnon, the unsubstantiated “deep state” plot to overthrow US president Donald Trump, supported him.

Mr Miller continued to endorse QAnon supporters on Sunday, when he produced more bizarre comments on Beyoncé.

He suggested that 2016 hit "Formation" was “a secret coded message to the globalists”.

“The song clearly admitted that she was demonic and that she worshipped in the Satanist churches located in Alabama & Louisiana,” wrote Mr Miller.

He added that Beyonce, who sings in ‘Formation’ that “I just might be a black Bill Gates in the making”, was another “coded globalist message”.

“Consequently, in 2020 we see Black Lives Matter terrorizing the country at the same time as Bill Gates pushes a COVID vaccination,” the conservative candidate claimed.

The comments come amid QAnon conspiracy theories claiming George Soros and Bill Gates created Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter protests to destabilise Mr Trump’s 2020 re-election bid.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said last month that “right-wing pundits and activists are now alleging that Soros is funding the protests following the murder of George Floyd”.

It added that while Soros-related conspiracy theories did not mention the Hungarian-American’s Jewish heritage, such claims were based on antisemitic tropes that blamed Jews for the riots.