Mike Huckabee slams Obama for letting daughters listen to Beyonce
By Leslie Larson
Mike Huckabee's got a problem with the Obamas' parenting.
The former Arkansas governor and possible Republican candidate in 2016 ripped the President and First Lady on Tuesday for allowing their teen daughters to be crazy in love with Beyoncé.
And in his new book, Huckabee accuses the singer's husband, Jay Z, of "crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife as a sex object."
He slammed the first family's fondness for the Grammy-award winning goddess, claiming the singer "has sort of a regular key to the door," in comments Tuesday to People magazine.
Huckabee said he's baffled that Michelle Obama's fierce protection of Malia, 16, and Sasha, 13, doesn't extend to their musical choices.
"I don't understand how on one hand they can be such doting parents and so careful about the intake of everything — how much broccoli they eat and where they go to school and making sure they're kind of sheltered and shielded from so many things — and yet they don't see anything that might not be suitable for either a preteen or a teen in some of the lyrical content and choreography of Beyonce," Huckabee told People magazine.
Huckabee, 59, spoke to the celebrity magazine to promote his new book "God, Guns, Grits and Gravy."
In his book, he criticizes Beyonce and Jay Z for their steamy duet "Drunk in Love" and suggests the rap mogul, 45, is exploiting his 33-year-old wife.
Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh, oh no no: Mike Huckabee questions why President Obama allows his daughters to listen to Beyonce. (Susan Walsh/AP)
"Beyoncé is incredibly talented – gifted, in fact," Huckabee writes.
"She has an exceptional set of pipes and can actually sing. She is a terrific dancer – without the explicit moves best left for the privacy of her bedroom. Jay Z is a very shrewd businessman, but I wonder: does it occur to him that he is arguably crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife as a sex object?"
Beyonce sang the National Anthem at Obama's 2013 presidential Inauguration.
In a 2012 radio interview, Obama described the singer and her husband as "good friends."
Obama told Cleveland radio host Colby Colb, "They're good people. They're unbelievably successful but they really are down to earth folks. Beyonce could not be sweeter to Michelle and the girls, who are big Beyonce fans. They're good friends. We talk about the same things I talk about with all my friends."
Joe Levy, editor-at-large of Billboard, called Huckabee's comments "the worst kind of moralistic mongering, used to stir the base."
"Beyoncé has made her feelings about being an independent woman known throughout her career," Levy said. "The assumption that being a strong role model for women means that you can't be sexy and enjoy an active sex life with your husband would be offensive to many people — most of them women."
With Jim Farber
llarson@nydailynews.com