Michelle Williams Didn't Know Beyoncé's 'Single Ladies' Until She Took a Zumba Class

Michelle Williams doesn’t like to go on talk shows, her best friend Busy Philipps reveals, just as she introduces Williams on her own talk show on Thursday night. Maybe it’s because Williams is pretty private—or maybe she knew one day she’d end up exposing herself as a person who went a very long time without knowing what Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” was, until she heard it in a Zumba class. Which, wow. How do you go that long without knowing about one of Beyoncé’s most well-known songs?? It’s almost impressive?

While talking about Williams’s new TV show Fosse/Verdon, Philipps remarks that her best friend has turned into a great dancer in the process of starring in other musical projects like Cabaret and The Greatest Showman. “Also, just I want to say this, my girl loves a Zumba class,” Philipps tells the audience.

“I’m gonna put that in the past tense,” Williams is quick to add. “I loved a Zumba class. It’s where I could catch up with what was cool in music three years ago.” Do you see where this is going?

She goes on: “Remember I took my first Zumba class and I heard for the first time ‘All the Single Ladies,’ and I was like ‘This is what people were talking about SINGLE LADIES,’ I never understood why everyone was saying ‘SINGLE LADIES’.”

Williams doesn’t explicitly say here HOW LONG she lived without hearing a Beyoncé song, or perhaps hearing it in the wild and never putting two and two together. She does say that, once she figured it out, in the throes of her Zumba class, she realizes it’s “a good song! I like this song!”

At this point, Philipps remarks that “Sometimes it is, like, very shocking that you live in this world.”