Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani wasn’t a fan of Beyoncé’s 16 minute performance at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night, taking issue with the popular performer’s statement about police brutality in the black community.
Giuliani appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday where co-host Ainsley Earhardt showed him a clip of Beyoncé’s performance and specifically asked for his thoughts on the first segment – where dancers bathed in red light fell to the ground at the sound of gun shots.
“That was supposed to symbolize cops killing black individuals,” Earhardt explained.
READ MORE: Black lives matter is ‘inherently racist’: Rudy Giuliani
Giuliani told Earhardt that she was asking “the wrong person” because he has “five uncles who were police, two cousins who were, one who died in the line of duty.”
The 72 year old proceeded to state that:
“I ran the largest and the best police department in the world, the New York City Police Department, and I saved more black lives than any of those people you saw on stage by reducing crime and particularly homicide by 75 per cent… of which, maybe four or five thousand were African American young people who are alive today because of the policies I put in effect that weren’t in effect for 35 years.”
READ MORE: Beyoncé dominates VMAs with political gestures and 16-min. performance
He continued to detail his mayoral triumphs and called the performance a “shame,” saying that the pop star should have also symbolized “why the police officers are in those neighbourhoods,” pointing at failing public schools and inadequate economic opportunity.
Beyoncé walked the VMA’s red carpet with the mothers of gun violence victims Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin.
The group of women are often referred to as the Mothers of the Movement and all of them, except for Grant’s mother, appeared in Lemonade, holding portraits of their late sons.
READ MORE: Beyoncé writes open letter calling for action: ‘Stop killing us’
Giuliani also criticized Beyoncé’s Super Bowl halftime performance in February as an “attack” on police officers.
“This is football, not Hollywood, and I thought it was really outrageous that she used it as a platform to attack police officers, who are the people who protect her and protect us, and keep us alive,” he previously said.
The Hold Up singer clarified that she is not anti-police back in April in an interview with Elle magazine. “Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe,” she said. “But let’s be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.”
Watch Giuliani criticize Beyoncé’s VMA performance below:
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