Lorella Cuccarini

Following her performance at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, American pop star Beyoncé initially received widespread praise from fans and critics. Critics, however, voiced concerns about similarities to Cuccarini's in February 2010 performance at the 60th Sanremo Music Festival. Billy Johnson, Jr of Yahoo! Music wrote: "Kenzo Digital, who spent a month creating Beyoncé's interactive video, told Yahoo! News that Lorella concert footage is only part of the inspiration for Beyoncé's show: "[The Cuccarini artists] are awesome and do incredible work as well, but there are a lot of different inspirations for where our piece came from." Beyoncé responded two days later through an interview with AOL Music, saying she was inspired after finding Cuccarini's performance online:"My makeup artist showed me the performance of Lorella Cuccarini a year ago, and it inspired me so much. I then met with the talented people who worked on it. The technology and concept were so genius. She was inspired after discovering Cuccarini's performance online. Thank God for YouTube or I would have never been exposed to something so inspiring. I never worked so hard on anything in my life as that performance for the Billboard Awards."

Cuccarini is also a singer, with several top-ten charting singles and albums; in 1995 she entered the competition at the Sanremo Music Festival (she had hosted two years earlier), ranking tenth with the song "Un altro amore no".

Cuccarini married the composer Silvio Testi in 1991. They have four children. Her father, Vero Cuccarini, has been repeatedly convicted of usury. In January 2019 she openly spoke in favour of the anti-refugee policies of minister Matteo Salvini, leader of Lega Nord.

Lorella Cuccarini (born August 10, 1965) is an Italian dancer, singer, television host and actress.