Queen B: 20 Rare Facts About Beyonce

You either love Beyoncé or you're wrong. Bey is the undisputed ruler of all things sexy, sassy and fierce – whether it's casually dropping surprise albums that sell more in three days than other artists do in a year, donating multi-million dollar paycheques to charity, or taking up acting as a side hustle for a bit of fun; Sasha Fierce don't take no guff! To pay homage to the Queen B of the Bey-hive, here are 20 rare facts about her life to date that are sure to get you buzzing:

1) She added a word to the dictionary

Destiny Child's song Bootylicious was such an undisputed banger that even the bookworms at the Oxford English Dictionary took note. You can find Bootylicious after 'bootyless' (as in 'The pirates returned disappointed from a bootyless expedition') and before 'bootyn' (an odd mash up of booty and the French equivalent, butin, as in 'les pirates ont trouvé du bootyn'). We certainly know which booty gets our vote!

2) To overcome stage-fright, in 2003 Beyoncé invented an alter-ego called Sasha Fierce

She has since 'killed off' Sasha Fierce, as she felt she didn't need her to overcome her shy personality and perform anymore, "because I've grown and now I'm able to merge the two."

3) In the early stages of her solo career, Beyoncé walked out of a photo shoot after the photographer asked her to pose naked and smothered in honey

No matter how big a fan of nudity or honey you might be as separate concepts, combining the two does sound terrible tbf! Requests from photographers for nudity are something Beyoncé has regularly had to deal with, as she revealed to the Daily Mail – "Man, if I had a dollar for every time that kind of guy says, 'you'll only get the cover if you take off your pants', I'd be a rich woman."

4) Before they became famous, her dad made the members of Destiny's Child jog and sing simultaneously to prepare them for performing live

Bey has had a complicated relationship with her father over the years, with intense periods of collaboration between the two during the early and middle stages of her career, followed by recent rocky patches due to some very public infidelity and money problems on her father's part. 

5) In addition to being the most Grammy-nominated woman in history, Bey was the first woman to win six Grammys in one year 

Adele has since matched the accolade, sweeping the board at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards with her 2011 album, 21.

6) The inspiration for the name Destiny's Child came from a passage in the book of Isaiah

Beyonce had a Methodist Christian upbringing in Houston, Texas. Coming from a family of strong believers, Bey still maintains her Christian faith, though she has somewhat eschewed the regimented rituals of religion – "For me it is about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what he does for me is something deeply personal."

7) Whilst on tour, she films every performance and pours over the footage. In the morning, everyone involved in the tour receives a round of notes with her feedback

Imagine waking up to a note from The Queen criticising your professional booty shaking skills!

8) Her acting debut was as Foxxy Cleopatra in Goldmember

Groovy baby!

9) Her announcement that she was pregnant with Blue Ivy Carter broke the Guinness World Record for most tweets/second

You know you're entering a family of celeb royalty when you're smashing records before you've even been born! 

10) Blue Ivy's record-breaking wasn't finished either, as two days after her birth she became the youngest person to feature in the Billboard 100 after Jay-Z included her cries in his track 'Glory' 

Anyone else feeling a tad self-conscious about their non-World-Record-breaking life achievements to date?

 

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11) Keen anglophiles, Jay-Z and Beyoncé own a £5.5 million pad in Mayfair 

So next time you see the power couple touring Europe, you might catch a glimpse of them buying milk and eggs if you hang around the local M&S. On second thoughts, that's stalking, don't do that.

12) After Target refused to stock her album because she gave a first-week exclusive to iTunes, Beyoncé responded by heading to a Walmart in Massachusetts where she handed out gift cards to everyone in the store

Mess with the Queen B and you are going to get stung!

13) Her eponymous 5th album was produced in complete secrecy, with about a dozen people at Sony aware of the details and a codeword of 'Lily' used in all correspondence

The success of this secretive recording process is particularly impressive given the fact that the album includes features from artists as massive as Pharrell, Justin Timberlake, Frank Ocean and Sia. 

14) Beyoncé was released in 2013 with a tweet from Bey's account proclaiming "Surprise!" the sum total of the album's marketing

The unconventional release tactic worked, causing a social media frenzy that helped sell 828,733 copies worldwide in the first three days of release. 

15) She donated her entire $4,000,000 paycheque from the film Cadillac Records to the Phoenix House Drug Rehabilitation Centre

A serial philanthropist, Bey also sponsors dozens of different charitable causes and was rumoured to have donated in the region of $7,000,000 to the relief efforts in Southeast Texas following the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey.

16) Australian researchers named a species of house fly 'Scaptia Beyonceae' after her in honour of its impressive golden behind

This story comes with a wonderful quote from Bryan Lessard, the scientist behind naming the Spactia Beyonceae, as part of the reason he chose the name was that it gave him a "chance to demonstrate the fun side of taxonomy."

17) She was bullied at school for having large ears

Bet those school bullies were feeling pretty foolish when she was named The World's Most Beautiful Woman by People Magazine in 2010!

18) She is a descendant of Joseph Broussard, an Acadian leader who was a key figure in resisting the British during the French and Indian Wars

After fighting a guerrilla war against the British colonisation of his native Nova Scotia for many years, he was captured and imprisoned. Upon his release he led his fellow Acadians to settle in Louisiana. Beyoncé also has Creole, African, Native American, French and Irish ancestry.  

19) She won an award from the New York Association of Black Journalists for her Essence article titled 'Eat, Play, Love'

Is there anything this woman can't do?!

20) The first time Beyoncé met Channing Tatum, he was dressed as ... Beyoncé!

Going up against his (now former!) wife Jenna Dewan-Tatum in popular American series Lip Sync Battle, Channing was strutting his stuff to Beyoncé's hit single Run The World when the Queen B herself joined him onstage for the finale of his dance routine. Already brilliant, the below video is made more so by the fact that this is the first time the two had actually met face to face!