Beyoncé Hit With Cease & Desist Over Sphere Footage In Cowboy Carter Tour
By Jovonne Ledet
May 3, 2025
The owner of the Sphere has hit Beyoncé with a cease-and-desist letter over her usage of the Las Vegas venue in footage for her Cowboy Carter Tour.
According to the New York Post, James Dolan, the CEO of Sphere Entertainment, sent the letter to Bey's production company, Parkwood Entertainment, requesting the singer stop using the footage for her show "without permission," noting that its incorporation into the tour is misleading to fans.
“It has recently come to SEG’s attention that a Cowboy Carter tour interlude video contains the unauthorized use of SEG’s intellectual property,” the letter reads. “SEG is sure that multiple aspects of the interlude video, including other brands, clips and music, were duly cleared by the tour with rights permissions from the rights holders whose works were used in the video, as is common practice. SEG, however, was never asked, and the prominent appearance and manipulation of SEG’s Sphere venue in the video is unauthorized.”
One of the interludes featured in the singer's Cowboy Carter tour shows an enlarged Beyoncé looming over and picking up the Las Vegas Sphere along with other iconic monuments in locations she's visiting during her global tour.
“Beyoncé — many orders of magnitude larger than the Sphere venue — leans over, picks up the venue, and looms over it,” leading to “significant speculation that Beyoncé will end her tour with a Sphere residency," Dolan's cease-and-desist letter reads.
According to reports, Dolan was upset by the visual after he tried to negotiate with the singer for her to perform at his Las Vegas venue. Beyoncé has opted to hold her Vegas shows at Allegiant Stadium on July 25 and 26.
The Grammy award-winner launched her tour on Monday (April 28) with the first of five shows at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
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