After her performance of “Run the World (Girls)” at the Billboard Music Awards last weekend, many fans are wondering: is Beyonce an unoriginal copycat? Or is she showing that she’s Lorella Cuccerini biggest fan? And we’re wondering if she’s really that much different from artists like Jack White and Johnny Cash.

Well, according to this AOL Music quote where Beyonce explains herself, it looks like she was “inspired.”

“My makeup artist showed me the performance of Lorella Cuccarini a year ago, and it inspired me so much,” Beyonce tells AOL Music, exclusively. “I then met with the talented people who worked on it. The technology and concept were so genius. 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.”