Beyoncé is distancing herself from a report in The Sun that her next film project would be a biopic about Saartjie "Sarah" Baartman, the African slave turned "freak show" performer in Paris and London. According to the British newspaper, the Dreamgirls star was intending to turn the life of Baartman, who was famed for her large buttocks, into a vanity project that might earn her an Oscar.

The Guardian reports that the singer had been inundated with criticism about the rumored project from sources within South Africa, where Baartman is considered a cultural icon."She lacks the basic human dignity to be worthy of writing Sarah’s story, let alone playing the part,” Chief Jean Burgess of the Ghonaqua First Peoples told News24 . “Why Sarah Baartman? Why not a story about an Indigenous American woman? I can only see arrogance in her attempt to tell a story that is not hers to tell.”But a rep for the pop diva insists she has no involvement with telling Baartman's story.“Beyoncé is not connected to this project, but this is a very important story to be told," a spokesperson told Gossip Cop Indeed, Baartman's life was a fascinating, though heartbreaking, one. She was forced to perform semi-naked in European clubs under the name Hottentot Venus, and died in poverty at just 26 years old.