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She was named the Planet's Most Powerful Celebrity this week, and here's why
And four years after she declared in a song that she would one day Run The World, perhaps “clairvoyant” should be added to that list.
This week she was named as the Planet’s Most Powerful Celebrity, knocking her idol Oprah Winfrey off Forbes magazine’s top spot.
At just 32 years old, can Beyonce really be the world’s greatest mover and shaker? Well, quite literally, yes.
She may be renowned for her “bootilicious” posterior and hip-thrusting, bottom-grinding dance moves, but every other aspect of her life is as perfectly choreographed as her stage shows.
To think Beyonce got to where she is today by chance – gracing the most glamorous red carpets, earning £1.6million per gig, hobnobbing with the US President and First Lady, becoming a force for social good in America through her Chimes For Change charity – would be doing her a huge disservice.
Like so many alpha females, Beyonce is something of a control freak. She is a terrifying perfectionist who expects the same high standards from those around her as she does of herself.
In her New York offices she has a dedicated Beyonce Knowles Archive – a sprawling, indexed catalogue of every performance, interview and advert she has ever appeared in.
A cameraman is often on hand to film her every waking move and at the end of each and every show she watches back her performance and gives a detailed, written critique of her efforts.
The following morning, she hands out inch-thick dockets to her team with notes on how they too could improve.
It’s been that way from the tender age of seven. While others dreamed of being astronauts, vets, footballers and pilots, baby Bey always knew she would be a singer, and did everything in her power to make it happen.
According to her younger sister, Solange, Beyonce would practise dance routines in her bedroom until she had them down pat: “I remember her taking a line out of a song or a routine and just doing it over and over and over again until it was perfect,” she once said.
Born and raised in Texas to music manager Mathew Knowles and hair salon owner Celestine, life was comfortable and middle-class for both sisters.
By eight Beyonce was a regular on the Houston talent show circuit and at 12 she was spotted by an agent. With friend Kelly Rowland she was flown to LA to enter Star Search, the X Factor of its day.
They didn’t win but were snapped-up by a record label and in 1996, after much reshuffling, Destiny’s Child was born with Michelle Williams joining the two girls.
The group went on to sell more than 60 million records but it was evident that Beyonce was the main attraction.
Given centre billing in every dance routine and promo campaign, a solo career was inevitable.
In 2003, two years before the group formally split, her debut solo album Dangerously In Love sold more than 11 million. Since then she has sold a further 75 million albums, won 17 Grammys, earned a Golden Globe nomination for her acting role in Dreamgirls and become one of the most photographed, written about and lauded celebrities of all time.
In 2008 she married rapper Jay-Z and in 2012 their daughter Blue Ivy was born. In the last year alone she is estimated to have earned £67million.
As someone just two months younger than Beyonce, a track-record like that is almost enough to make me give up now.
But you don’t get to where she is without a backbone of titanium and a good dollop of ruthlessness.
In her own words, “I worked so hard during my childhood to meet this goal. By the time I was 30 I could do what I want.
“I’ve reached that. I feel very fortunate to be in that position. But I’ve sacrificed a lot of things, and I’ve worked harder than probably anyone I know, at least in the music industry. So I just have to remind myself that I deserve it.”
Four years ago she effectively sacked her father after he had an affair that ended his marriage – officially the pair “parted ways” managerially – and nowadays she surrounds herself with a vast entourage that panders to her every whim. Her marriage to the planet’s most famous rapper cemented her global icon status.
On top of Beyonce’s new title as Most Powerful Celebrity – the award is measured by mentions in print, TV, radio and social media – they also jointly top Forbes Magazine’s Richest Celebrity Couple list.
In some ways guarded about her private life, in others she is not above a bit of self-promotion.
She and Jay-Z, 44, married in April 2008 with absolutely no fanfare or publicity. But she used her album launch that October to confirm that they had wed, playing clips of the big day. That ensured more column inches than any other artist that week and shot her straight to No 1.
A master at self-publicity, last Christmas she defied all PR convention (oh, how her publicity team must have chuckled) and released a brand-new self-titled album unannounced to her eight million Instagram followers with a short video and one word: “Surprise!”
She notched up her fifth successive No 1 album, of course.
But though the internet has been her friend, Beyonce recently discovered that even the most loyal of companions can turn against you.
Six weeks ago a clip showing her leaving a party with Jay-Z and sister Solange was leaked online. It showed Solange physically attacking the rapper as they got into a lift.
A few days later a terse statement insisted they had put the matter behind them and had “moved forward as a united family”.
But it was all grist to a rumour mill that had been questioning the stability of her marriage for months.
On stage this week she did little to quash the stories and made a telling change to the lyrics to her song Resentment, sparking questions about whether Jay-Z had cheated on her.
But Beyonce has the steely determination to bounce back from almost any setback.
Last year she faced global ridicule after it emerged she had lip-synched the US national anthem during Barack Obama’s Inauguration.
After 10 days of silence, she floored critics with a flawless performance of The Star-Spangled Banner at a Super Bowl press conference as live TV cameras rolled. At the end, she raised a delicately threaded eyebrow, and asked reporters: “Any questions?”
And because she would have it no other way, I shall leave it to Beyonce to have the final word...
“I now know that, yes, I am powerful. I’m more powerful than my mind can even digest and understand.”
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