When the Internet first hit our lives, nobody predicted that it would become a cesspool of pop culture paranoia, where that one wacked-out theory you had after smoking weed all day with the curtains closed could suddenly be "validated" with analysed tweets and annotated YouTube vids. The Internet is essentially a place where obsessives meet other obsessives to justify their own obsessions, and if, for some reason, you’re convinced that Avril Lavigne died and was replaced by a doppelganger in 2002 (because her moles have disappeared…duh), there will of course be an obscure Brazillian blog to prove it.

No singer has been more theorized, analysed or argued over than multi-talented cultural juggernaut Queen Bey, the artist who was named the world’s most powerful celebrity and who has had whole buildings built in honour of her majestic form. Earlier this week, Beyoncé’s dad decided to tell everybody that his daughter had been lying about her age, and that she was not 34 but 36. Putting aside the fact that her age is not even slightly relevant to her music, it's a pretty weird public declaration to make. However, it’s hardly the most off-the-wall theory about the singer, who has been accused of everything from being Solange Knowles’ real mother to (and this is my personal fave) recruiting children for Satan. To celebrate the deranged little diatribe that is Beyonspiracy theories, we’ve delved into a few of the most bizarre.

SHE IS A TOP-TIER MEMBER OF THE ILLUMINATI

This is one of the more basic conspiracy theories about Beyoncé, and everybody else under the sun has been accused of being Illuminati, including Jay-Z, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Kanye West, Drake and probably your nan. People claim that Beyoncé is a member of the organisation that wishes to subtly elicit mind control through music and image in order to achieve their globalist agenda of authoritarian rule. Because why else would Beyoncé make her hands into triangles? Everybody knows that triangles = mind control.

SOLANGE KNOWLES IS ACTUALLY BEYONCE'S DAUGHTER

Yep. Solange Knowles is not Beyoncé’s younger sister but her daughter. Why? Because some bloke on the internet said that his cousin told him, which means that it’s definitely true. You might point out that with their five-year age gap, this seems entirely unfeasible. But don’t forget that Beyoncé is older than she says she is. Where there's a question, there is always an answer.

BEYONCE HAS BEEN RECRUITING TEENAGERS FOR SATAN

Thought Beyoncé’s incredible live shows were for entertainment purposes? Wrong! According to this very legit theory from a group called Now The End Begins, Bey’s shows (especially her evil Super Bowl performance) are full of occult references, including inverted pentagrams, goat heads and the Gemini Twins. This means she has been possessed by an evil demon (the one she calls “Sasha Fierce”) who wants to make audience members worship the Devil. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

BEYONCE CHANGED THE NAMES OF THE OTHER MEMBERS OF DESTINY’S CHILD 

Okay, this one isn’t as far-fetched as the others. Back when LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett were ousted from Destiny’s Child, they claimed that their manager Matthew Knowles favoured his daughter and tried to focus the limelight on her only. He then replaced them with Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, whose real names are Kelendria and Tenitra. The Internet has since decided that Kelendria and Tenitra’s names were changed to something more boring to accommodate Beyoncé. 

BEYONCE KILLED JOAN RIVERS

When comedian Joan Rivers sadly passed away last year at the age of 81, theorists reached new levels of absolute insanity and decided that BEYONCE WAS DEFINITELY RESPONSIBLE. Why? Because Rivers’ last (absolutely hilarious) tweet threw shade at Beyoncé, and she passed away on Beyoncé’s birthday. Also, Rivers was born in 1933 and Beyoncé has just turned 33. Of course, being superhuman and all, Bey will have predicted the tweet and then carried out the murder so that the numbers match. Why hasn’t she been arrested yet?

BEYONCE WAS NEVER REALLY PREGNANT

Remember that time Beyonce sat down during an interview and her dress crumpled? Well that’s because she was faking her pregnancy and was actually wearing a deflated balloon strapped to her stomach. This bizarre, quite intrusive theory actually started to stay afloat for a while – until Bey gave birth and metaphorically told everybody to shut the fuck up, that is.