Fire At Beyoncé & Jay-Z’s New Orleans Property Being Investigated As Arson

A fire at the $2.4 million New Orleans home of Jay-Z and Beyoncé has been ruled as arson after police say a “suspicious person” report was made around the time the fire broke out Wednesday night.

The New Orleans Fire Department responded to a fire on Harmony Street in the luxurious Garden District. A New Orleans Police Department spokesperson said on Thursday they received calls about a suspicious person in the area at the time of the fire.

Authorities believe the fire started in the kitchen of the abandoned mansion where a gasoline can and books in an oven were found. A neighbor who was a witness on the scene told WGNO News that he saw a man flee from the home after the fire erupted.

“I was walking around the corner with my dog… and I saw a lot of smoke coming out,” the neighbor recalled. “My neighbor around the corner, she saw a dude jump over the fence on the backside of Harmony and Eighth.”

The fire was fully extinguished nearly two hours later after 22 firefighters responded at the scene. The three-story building is believed to have remained intact on the outside.

“If they didn’t get there when they did, it could have been much worse. It’s a historic home,” a spokesperson for the fire department said.

The 15,200-square-foot home owned by Sugarcane Park LLC, the management company owned by Beyoncé, was originally a church that was turned into a ballet school. Neighbors said they have only seen few people enter the gated property in the past two years, and people are known to enter the property using an unlocked gate.