The Woman Who Takes Those Beyoncé-Approved Photos Has Cancer

Earlier this year, Beyoncé got in some hot water when the full-degree of her control freakness was revealed to the world as some unflattering photos of her performing at the Super Bowl were made available by the Associated Press and published on the internet. She then had someone on her team request that they be replaced with more favorable photos. When that didn’t go over so well, Beyoncé decided to cut out the middle man and make the journalistically chill call and ban all photographers from her shows.

After this embargo, photos of her performing during the Mrs. Carter Show world tour have been made available via her very very popular Tumblr and then licensed through the Associated Press in a very modern form of pop star propaganda. And until recently, the person behind these Beyoncé-approved photos wasn’t known. It was clear that though it was probably Beyoncé herself posting those cute Instagrams of Blue Ivy, she’s not so superhuman that she can perform a stunning rendition of “Countdown” and take stunning photos of herself at the same time.

But through a video posted by her team, we know now that Beyoncé’s magic photographer is named Yosra El-Essawy – or she was, until a recent diagnosis with stage 4, inoperable oeseophageal cancer forced her to leave the tour only a couple months in.

“Beyoncé specifically is the only celebrity that I’ve ever vocalized wanting to photograph, ever,” says El-Essway in the video. “There’s just such a humanity and beauty about her that I’ve always seen,” she adds, before telling a story about how Beyoncé hugged and kissed two little girls during one of her shows and made their lives.

El-Essway is a beautiful photographer with a really impressive story, someone who is clearly lucky to have such a great supportive team around her, which is why it’s sort of annoying that, as is the case with everything B-related, her coverage of the really cool people she wisely chooses to surround her is always slightly tainted with a vibe of how impressive she is to have picked them. That being said, now we have a face and a name for the woman who unknowingly caused all that controversy and we can wish her the very best of luck (within the last couple weeks, El-Essawy has received some good news about her health). Like everyone around Beyoncé, she seems kind, talented and very humble.