A traffic reporter who managed to make 15 Beyoncé references during a recent news segment has earned praise from the singer’s mother, Tina Knowles-Lawson.
Earlier this week, NBC10 reporter Sheila Watko made her love for Beyoncé known when she decided to sprinkle the “Formation” singer’s song titles and lyrics into her Philadelphia traffic report.
“Thank you Bill, I always appreciate it when you ‘Say My Name,’” Watko began the segment. “Now if you’re just waking up, I hope that you had some ‘Sweet Dreams.’”
Watko then went on to use 13 additional Beyoncé song titles and mentions, referencing the 28-time Grammy Award winner’s songs “Heated,” “Break My Soul,” “Countdown,” “Beautiful Liar,” and “Formation”.
“Traffic is getting ‘Heated’ and it’s starting to ‘Break My Soul’ just a little bit,” Watko continued, before joking at one point during the traffic update that she is a “Beautiful Liar,” in reference to the singer’s 2006 song.
The Philadelphia-based reporter also noted that there’d been a “Formation” of traffic cones still holding up traffic, before encouraging drivers to move over “to the left, to the left,” in reference to Beyoncé’s song “Irreplaceable”.
“Just Bey alert out there, if everybody takes it easy this morning we can be ‘Crazy in Love’ with a nice calm commute,” Watko continued.
The reporter concluded the segment by informing her colleagues that she’d been planning the script for days in celebration of the singer’s new album Renaissance.
“When traffic is *jumpin, jumpin*, it’s time to pay tribute to Queen Bey, who I am *dangerously in love* with,” Watko captioned the video on TikTok, where it has been viewed more than 42,000 times.
The now-viral traffic report also captured the attention of Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles-Lawson, who shared a clip of the news segment to her Instagram and praised the impressive reporting.
“This is so cool!! All song titles,” the singer’s mother wrote.
Watko’s work continued to earn her praise in the comments section, where many of Knowles-Lawson’s followers also applauded the reporter.
“This was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen,” one person commented, while another said: “This was definitely dope, so creative.”
Watko’s report also received praise, and additional help, from her on-air coworkers, with one presenter telling her: “You know Watko, you ‘Run the World,’” in reference to the singer’s 2011 hit song.
As for Watko’s response to the acknowledgement from her idol’s mother, the reporter told NBC Philadelphia that she was “gonna faint” when she realised.
“I was gonna die. I mean, if Beyoncé is the queen - which she is - Miss Tina is the super queen? I mean she gave us Beyoncé, come on,” Watko said of her thrilled reaction. “I was dying. I’m still dying, I can’t get over it.”
Beyoncé released her seventh studio album Renaissance on 29 July. The album is the singer’s first solo album in six years.
