Beyonce honored O’Shae Sibley on Tuesday after the 28 year-old man was fatally stabbed after dancing to her music.
“REST IN POWER O’SHAE SIBLEY,” read a banner on the “CUFF IT” singer’s official website.
According to reports, Sibley was killed at a gas station in Brooklyn in front of his friends. Witnesses say he was voguing to a Beyonce song when a group of men told him to stop dancing and began to shout homophoic slurs at Sibley and his friends.
Sibley confronted the men when he was stabbed. The act was caught on Facebook Live by one of Sibley’s friends, Otis Pena. The professional dancer was transferred to a local hospital but was declared dead on arrival.
Beyoncé pays tribute to O'Shae Sibley, man who was killed in homophobic attack at a gas station in New York while voguing to one of her songs. pic.twitter.com/iK2cA4iVYp
— Pop Base (@PopBase) August 1, 2023
“They murdered him because he’s gay, because he stood up for his friends,” Otis Pena, one of Sibley’s friends who was with him when he was killed, said in a video posted to Facebook.
He added, “His name was O’Shae and you all killed him. You all murdered him right in front of me.”
A vigil was held on Tuesday in the East Village. He was a professional dancer featured in music videos and even performed at New York City's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
New York Police Department is investigating the act as a “possible biased incident.” They also say they have identified a suspect, but no arrests have been made.
Beyoncé’s most recent album Renaissance was largely inspired by ballroom and dance music where. In fact, the iconic artist dedicated the album to her late Uncle Johnny, an out gay man. Renaissance also featured a variety of queer producers and creatives on its tracks.
His aunt, Tondra Sibley, told the New York Times, “O’Shae has always been a peacemaker. All he wanted to do was dance. It was a senseless crime,” she said.
A GoFundMe set up by Sibley's father has raised more than $27,000 dollars to go toward covering the costs related to his unexpected death.
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