Most will remember that moment in 2013 when Beyoncé came out as a feminist in her Flawless video by using excerpts from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk, We Should All Be Feminist. Adichie who is the award winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah received global publicity for her feature in the video. However, despite what people called a “milestone” in her career, Adicihie always declined commenting on the collaboration or Beyoncé – until now.

The 39-year-old author finally shared her thoughts on Beyoncé’s brand of feminism in an interview with de Volksrant about the upcoming translation of her talk We Should All Be Feminists – and you best believe the media will be raving about this too.

First of all, she acknowledges that Bey featuring her talk would definitely have made feminism reach the ears of those who otherwise would have been deaf to it.


'In the first place: of course Beyoncé asked permission to use my texts, and I did give her permission. I think she's lovely and I am convinced that she has nothing but the best intentions. In addition, Beyoncé is a celebrity of the first order and with this song she has reached many people who would otherwise probably never have heard the word feminism, let alone gone out and buy my essay.'  

But she is not thankful that most of the world seemed to think that Beyoncé jumpstarted her career – she is a an award winning author after all

But I was shocked about how many requests for an interview I received when that song was released. Literally every major newspaper in the world wanted to speak with me about Beyoncé. I felt such a resentment (laughs loudly). I thought: are books really that unimportant to you? Another thing I hated was that I read everywhere: now people finally know her, thanks to Beyoncé, or: she must be very grateful. I found that disappointing. I thought: I am a writer and I have been for some time and I refuse to perform in this charade that is now apparently expected of me: "Thanks to Beyoncé, my life will never be the same again." That's why it didn't speak about it much.

Lastly, she and Bey don’t exactly take the same approach to feminism but she is impressed that the singer uses her voice to speak out on controversial political issues.


Her style is not my style, but I do find it interesting that she takes a stand in political and social issues, since a few years. She portrays a woman who is in charge of her own destiny, who does her own thing, and she has girl power. I am very taken with that. Still, her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men… We women should spend about 20 per cent of our time on men, because it's fun, but otherwise we should also be talking about our own stuff.'