Beyoncé’s Dance Captain, Ashley Everett, Explains Why the Singer Chopped off Her Hair in 2013

Take a look back at any musical performance Beyoncé has done over the last few years, and chances are, you’ll see Ashley Everett busting a move somewhere in the background.

Since 2007, the red-haired beauty has served as one of the singer’s lead dancers and has performed alongside Bey during some of her biggest career highlights to date.

In addition to being Beyoncé’s most loyal dancers, Everett is also a close friend of the superstar and has been there when Bey experienced some pretty huge milestones in life— including the time she chopped off all of her hair.

How did Everett come to be Beyoncé’s dance captain?

Beyoncé has had backup dancers come and go over the years, but Everett is someone who’s stayed by the singer’s side for more than a decade — which we don’t think she has any regrets about.

The performer began working with Beyoncé in 2007 after she auditioned for the singer’s “The Beyoncé Experience” tour.

“When I was 16, I moved to New York to pursue my dance career,” she told Blavity in 2019. “I’m from a small town in northern California. I had to go to the big city to try and start my career, and that’s where it all happened. When I was 17, I auditioned [for] Beyoncé, and my whole world did a 180.”

Since then, Everette has danced alongside the Grammy winner during some of her most prominent pop culture moments — including a handful of Bey’s most popular music videos (“Singles Ladies” and “Upgrade U” to name a few), both of her Super Bowl Halftime Show performances, as well as her sold-out world tours.

The dancer previously shared the reason behind Beyoncé’s bold cut

Since she’s been working with Beyoncé for nearly 13 years, Everett has been able to establish a solid friendship with the singer.

Though we don’t know the extent of their relationship, the dancer has revealed in the past that Beyoncé has been a huge inspiration to her over the years. She’s also shared that the singer is always encouraging her and the other dancers to love the things that make them who they are.

One thing Bey’s pushed her dancers to embrace is their natural hair, which Everett says the singer encouraged her to play around with when she was trying to find her signature hairstyle.

“She’ll say what she likes on us. She’ll be like, ‘Ashley, I like when your hair is big.’ She’ll say what she likes and we do have room to play and change,” Everett told Hello Beautiful in 2014. “But, for the most part, we try to stick to it because they want us to look the same. Like her, she doesn’t change her hair too much.”

As someone who’s donned her curly/ straight honey blonde locks for most of her career, Beyoncé doesn’t go between different hairstyles very often.

But in 2013, the singer shocked us all when she debuted a short, blonde pixie cut on her Instagram, following the ending of the summer leg of her Mrs. Carter world tour. 

Though her summer chop became the hottest and most talked-about hairstyle since Jennifer Aniston’s ‘Rachel Green’ hairdo, no one really knew why Beyoncé decided to cut her locks off, except Everett.

The following year, the dancer revealed to Hello Beautiful that Beyoncé explained to her the reason behind her big chop, sharing that she wanted to feel empowered and beautiful without relying on hair to do that for her.

“It was a big deal. I asked her, ‘What made you cut it?’ and she said she wanted to feel like a woman and feel beautiful without it being her hair that makes it feel that way,” she said. “So, she chopped her hair off.”