Beyonce takes on, then brushes off lip-sync controversy with impromptu media-conference national anthem

Well, there you have it.

Beyonce, who will perform at halftime of this year's Super Bowl, opened her Thursday media conference with an off-the-cuff rendition of the National Anthem. (The waving flag in the background suggests this was not entirely unplanned, however.) She closed her performance with "Any questions?", and it's pretty clear she wasn't soliciting inquiries on her predictions for the big game.

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She did indeed admit that she had lip-sync'ed the National Anthem at President Barack Obama's inauguration last week, but the message from her performance was clear: She coulda done it if she really wanted to.

"I practice until my feet bleed and I did not have time to rehearse with the orchestra," she said. "Due to no proper sound check, I did not feel comfortable taking a risk. It was about the president and the inauguration, and I wanted to make him and my country proud, so I decided to sing along with my pre-recorded track, which is very common in the music industry. And I'm very proud of my performance."

Here's more video about her inauguration performance:

Beyonce will perform at halftime in a performance likely to equal last year's Madonna performance, which drew 114 million viewers.

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