One of the most interesting mysteries in early 2000s pop culture has officially been solved, and the answer is less scandalous than you may think.
Michelle Williams pulled up to Keke Palmer’s Baby, This Is Keke Palmer podcast this week and addressed the viral 2001 Destiny’s Child interview that has had fans convinced for a quarter of a century that Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle were faaaar from sober during it.
If you’ve never seen the clip in question, the X post from @Yubbie007 will catch you right up. The three women are giggly, a little loopy, and giving answers that feel just slightly disconnected from the questions being asked. In one of the most iconic moments in the entire clip, Beyoncé announces with complete sincerity that if she could be any animal, she would be a whale.
“I know what I’d be, I’d be a whale. Iove whales,” said Beyoncé while eating.
“I think I would be a bird because they can fly,” added Kelly.
“I would like to be a black panther,” said Michelle amid a round of ‘oohs and ‘aahs’ before imitating the movement of the felines.
Fans have been using this clip as evidence for two decades to surmise that the trio was high during the sitdown.
Check out the clip below:
Unfortunately for fans stuck on the theory, Michelle said their actions were much more innocent than they looked.
“There is one interview we did where people think we’re high,” she told Keke. “I promise y’all Matthew and Tina Knowles was not playing that. We were not under the influence of any substance!”
And just in case anyone thought she might be covering for a youthful indiscretion with a twenty-five-year cushion, she went further.
“We were really tired,” she continued. “There were no edibles. It was literally jet lag. We were delusional. Media training is great, but when you’re tired, you can’t hide it.”
As PEOPLE reported, the explanation tracks entirely when you consider what Destiny’s Child’s schedule actually looked like in 2001. These were three young women running on a promotional treadmill that did not stop for weekends, time zones, or basic human rest. Michelle explained the group was running on fumes when they sat down for the interview, leaving them tired, loopy and a little delirious but definitely not under the influence of anything other than a brutal international schedule.
Michelle also made the point that would resonate with anyone who has ever tried to perform at full capacity while running on empty.
“Media training is great,” she said. But it can only take you so far, especially when you are exhausted and sitting in a room answering questions that you may not particularly love.”
And let us be honest: if Mathew and Tina Knowles were managing and supporting this group at the height of their career, the very suggestion that they would have allowed three young women to show up to a press interview in any state other than professional is genuinely difficult to believe.
The comments under every post covering this story have been split right down the middle between people who are fully accepting the jet lag explanation with love and grace and people who are watching the original clip on a loop and respectfully declining to be convinced.
We believe Michelle Williams. We also believe that jet lag is real, that Beyoncé would hypothetically be a whale, and that this clip will continue circulating for another twenty-five years regardless of any clarification offered.
