Former FBI Director James Comey shared a story on Sunday recalling an unusual moment from his time leading the bureau, describing how a reference to a Beyoncé song during a 2016 FBI briefing was met with silence from colleagues in the room.

Comey stated in a video posted Sunday on his Substack:

As FBI director, I would get briefed all the time on serious stuff, including operations or cases that always seemed to have these strange code names that nobody could explain the origin of, at least not to the director. And so the names became a little bit of an obsession of mine.

One morning, I was sitting at the head of a big table in a crowded room to get briefed on a particular piece of work. The briefer started by saying the operation was codenamed “Sandcastles.”

Now, this was 2016, and you may know that Beyoncé’s album Lemonade had come out with a track called “Sandcastles.” So I said, “Oh, like the Beyoncé song.” Blank stares all around the FBI conference room. So I did the natural thing. I think I sang, “We rebuild sand castles that washed away.” Nope, nothing — dead silence. “Never mind,” I said, “continue.” Only when I got home and told my family the story did I get the reaction I was looking for. When I write, I listen to classical or jazz because, in ways I can’t explain, the music unlocks something. It frees me.

Comey led the FBI from 2013 until he was fired in 2017 during President Donald Trump’s first administration. His remarks come months after a federal judge dismissed a 2025 indictment charging him with making false statements and obstruction of justice related to his 2020 Senate testimony, a ruling the Justice Department has indicated it will appeal.

In May 2025, Comey faced backlash after posting a photo on Instagram showing shells arranged in the numbers “86 47.” As Breitbart News reported at the time, the image showed a shell formation appearing as “86 47,” with “86” possibly meaning “eliminate” and “47” potentially meaning Trump. Trump had been the target of two failed assassination attempts in 2024 as he ran for president against former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Comey later removed the post and remarked in a follow-up statement: “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence … I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Following public reaction, comments on Comey’s Instagram account were disabled.