Laverne Cox was at the US Open recently when she started trending. That’s because she was misidentified on Twitter as Beyoncé.
Here’s how it happened: “The Morning Show” actor Choni Francis posted a clip that included a masked Cox enjoying a tennis match and tweeted that it was Queen Bey.
A few folks began to tweet that it wasn’t the superstar singer, but instead was Cox, who came to fame as one of the stars of “Orange Is the New Black.”
Cox grabbed it and reposted it on her verified Instagram account, writing “Not me getting mistaken for @Beyonce at the #USOpen tonight then trending on Twitter as the internet cackles over the mistaken identity.”
“These tweets are funny as hell. Enjoy!!! Go @serenawilliams #GOAT #SerenaWilliams #Beyonce,” her caption continued.
Francis leaned into it all and appealed to the Bey Hive, as Beyoncé’s devout fan base is known.
“14 years of comedic creativity and one tweet, and this how the #BeyHive finally knows of my existence,” he tweeted. “I am one of you. accept me..”
Laverne Cox (born May 29, 1972) is an American actress and LGBT advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, becoming the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category and the first to be nominated for an Emmy Award since composer Angela Morley in 1990.
She attended high school at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, a state-wide, public, magnet, boarding and day school in Birmingham. She started as a creative writing major, before later switching to the dance program.
In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class Special as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, making her the first transgender woman to win the award.
In 2017, Laverne Cox became the first transgender person to play a transgender series regular on U.S. broadcast TV as Cameron Wirth on CBS‘s Doubt.