The US Allows You To Go To Cuba, If Your Name Is Beyonce Or Jay-Z

Cuba off limits? No way.

Forget travel restrictions… if you’re Beyonce that is.

For their fifth wedding anniversary, Beyonce and Jay-Z picked Havana as the spot to celebrate their marital bliss, and were granted the right to go by the United States Treasury Department.

Although the Obama administration has eased restrictions on travel to Cuba, most Americans have to jump through lots of bureaucratic hoops to receive permission to get there.

What happens when a famous person gets to do what most of the rest of us don’t? It causes a bit of a media storm. Beyonce was referred to as a tool of “Castro propaganda” and the trip was highly criticized. Maybe the Obama administration was chalking it up to “cultural exchange”?

Wherever you stand on the Cuba issue, the Beyonce/Jay-Z effect has done one thing: bring U.S.-Cuba relations front and center in traditional media. If TMZ is talking about it, it must be important.

[Photo credit: JMParonne]