The expression “to give someone their flowers” means to praise a person and show them care.
Beyoncé has taken that literally.
The pop superstar recently sent elaborate all-white floral arrangements, along with personalized notes — some handwritten — to artists she admires, or who she says have inspired her work, including Jack White, SZA and K. Michelle.
As the artists have shared photos of the bouquets on social media, Beyoncé’s fans have shared their excitement and expressed their jealousy as they parsed the list of recipients for clues about what her next musical project might be.
Beyoncé has been known to send surprise, and often monochromatic, floral arrangements for years, but the recent activity has drawn outsize attention since the release last week of “Cowboy Carter,” Act II in an expected trilogy of genre-bending albums.
This week, Jack White, the singer-guitarist and former White Stripes frontman, shared a picture on Instagram of an arrangement that Beyoncé had sent him. Attached was a handwritten note: “Jack, I hope you are well. I just wanted you to know how much you inspired me on this record. Sending you my love, Beyoncé.”
He offered her praise in response. “Much love and respect to you Madam,” he wrote, adding, “Nobody sings like you.” (Fans were quick to speculate that Act III might be a rock album, and hoped White would be part of it.)
White’s bouquet, it will come as a surprise to no one, was not cheap.
LaParis Phillips, the owner and creative director of Brooklyn Blooms, identified some of the flowers in the bouquet. They included white ranunculus, white tulips, white agapanthus, white Ornithogalum, white lisianthus, white stock, white wax flowers and Dendrobium orchids.
“A guesstimation based on the type of flowers and with a New York price?” she said. “I would say this is, like, $200.”
She noted that White’s bouquet was delivered to him in Nashville, and that pricing may be different in that area.
All-white flowers are more typically sent for a wedding or in sympathy after a loss. But Beyoncé appears to favor them. Phillips speculated that she was going for “a fresh, sort of classic look.”
Last week, Beyoncé sent flowers to Black women in country music as she dived into the genre herself.
Mickey Guyton posted a picture of a bouquet on Instagram and a card from Beyoncé that read: “Mickey, thank you for opening doors for me, queen. Keep shining.”
Stephanie Hopkins, a floral designer at Eva’s Garden Florist in Manhattan, spotted anemones and hydrangeas in Guyton’s arrangement, and possibly Phalaenopsis orchids. “There might be white roses, but it’s hard to tell,” she said.
“They’re pricey,” she said of the flowers, estimating that the arrangement would cost $250 to $300.
Hopkins said that although she preferred pops of color, all-white arrangements had a “classic and clean” look. It could also be a smart strategy, she added, because it “doesn’t draw so much attention to each one being different; it’s hard to tell whose are more money.”
K. Michelle, an R&B artist who has been teasing a country album, posted a photo of her bouquet and a note from Beyoncé that read in part, “I know it’s not easy to enter a new space.”
In past years, Beyoncé has sent a host of others congratulatory arrangements and notes — Nicki Minaj, Katie Couric, Coi Leroy, Meghan Thee Stallion, Reneé Rapp, Katy Perry and Andra Day were among the recipients.
Yes, many people send flowers, but as with everything she does, there is a certain mystique and fastidiousness when Beyoncé does it.
She sends them so often that fans and observers online have started to joke about it. One said that her florist was “buying a third home this year.” Others have voiced jealousy or made mock versions of their own bouquets.
Regardless, it has become part of her lore.
Perhaps the arrangements offer a small glimpse into the life of a pop star who closely guards her privacy. Or maybe it’s just another sign of thoughtfulness and attention to detail by a meticulous Virgo.
It’s also impossible to know how involved Beyoncé herself is.
“I don’t think she thinks about it; I think she has her assistant call the flower shop,” Phillips said. “Usually when I get calls from a celebrity, that’s what it is. They give me a budget, they pick the colors, the vibe.”
But then again, it’s Beyoncé.
“I think she has more hours in a day than us,” Hopkins said.
