Becoming Beyoncé

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  “But why would anyone think such a thing?” he asked.

  “Oh, Lord, I gave up trying to figure people out a long time ago,” she said with a laugh.

  Daryl said he was proud of her and couldn’t help but note how far she’d come “since we lost that damn Elektra deal.”

  She smiled. “Oh my God! I remember those conversations you used to have with us girls telling us to be careful what we wish for, we just might get it.” She added that now that she had fame, she wished she could take her nephew—Solange’s boy, Julez—to the beach. “And the lawsuits,” she said, rolling her eyes. She noted that “some lady” was presently threatening to sue her for stealing a dance routine. “Like I can’t come up with my own dance routines?” (Beyoncé may have been referring to Italian pop star Lorella Cuccarini, although she never specified a name. It’s not known if Cuccarini actually accused Beyoncé of ripping her off, but her fans certainly did. Beyoncé finally admitted to being influenced, saying, “Thank God for YouTube or I would have never been exposed to something so inspiring.”)

  “Bey, I knew you were gonna be big,” Daryl said, “but I didn’t know you were gonna be this big.”

  “Me neither,” Beyoncé responded with a smile. She rested her hand on her stomach protectively. “It feels out of control sometimes,” she added. “For instance, I can’t do radio shows anymore.”

  Daryl asked her what she meant.

  “Those morning drive-time shows,” she explained. “They are the worst.” She said that she now refused to submit to them. “Would you believe that the last time I did a radio interview, the guy asked me on the air, ‘Whose farts smell worse? Yours or Jay’s?’ ”

  Daryl burst out laughing, as did Beyoncé. “That was it for me,” she said, shaking her head in dismay. “Sometimes I think about the old days with Miss Ann and you and the girls and I think, wow . . . that was such a simple, lovely time in my life. What happened, Daryl? With the Elektra deal, I mean. What really happened there?”

  As Daryl gently explained the problems he and Sylvia Rhone both had with Mathew, Beyoncé listened carefully, her brow furrowed. “Well, I figured it was something like that,” she finally observed, lowering her eyes. “But, my dad . . . for every mistake he may have made there were like a hundred things he did right,” she concluded, “so, I can’t fault him.” Then with a chuckle, she added, “Him and his doggone boot camp training!”

  Clearly, she was feeling sentimental. Daryl fanned the many pictures of her as a child in Girls Tyme, the Dolls, Somethin’ Fresh, Destiny, and then early Destiny’s Child on the conference table in front of them. “Nicki and Nina,” she exclaimed while staring at one photograph. “Oh my gosh! Look how pretty they were! And Ashley! It feels like it was just yesterday.”

  Daryl then began to play some of the archival footage of the girls on his laptop. As he did so, Parkwood employees kept popping into the conference room to watch, none of whom had ever seen Beyoncé at that age. Daryl recalled that he had a big smile on his face as he watched the screen. “The girls rehearsing in my basement, sweatin’ hard, dancing, working on their harmonies. ‘This was the beginning of everything,’ Beyoncé was telling people as they came in to watch. ‘Can you believe that we were, like, ten? Look at us dance!’ Before we knew it, the room was full of people amazed by what they were seeing. ‘We were actually pretty damn good!’ Beyoncé exclaimed. ‘But we should have been! All we ever did was rehearse!’ ”

  For the next four and a half hours, Beyoncé and Daryl watched video footage, reviewed photographs, and talked about the old days: Deborah and Denise . . . Andretta and her boys, Armon and Chris . . . To-to and Tony Mo. . . . Lonnie Jackson and Arne Frager . . . Sha Sha Daniels . . . names she hadn’t heard in years, none of which she could ever forget.

  As the sun began to set, the time had come for the old friends to part company. “All of this stuff? It’s yours,” Daryl said, motioning to the memorabilia before them. “I just want you to have it all. This is your life right here. This is what you created, Bey.”

  Beyoncé looked as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “Oh my God, Daryl. Thank you so much,” she said, choked up. “You know, it’s funny,” she concluded, “but when you take the time to think about it and really analyze your life, you realize that all of the dots are connected and that all of it somehow makes perfect sense.”

  Life Is But a Dream

  Of course, like most celebrities of her caliber, Beyoncé makes almost every move with an eye on image-making and protecting her brand. It’s understandable, especially if one considers how many millions are at stake in licensing and advertising her image. She even has someone called a “brand manager” at her Parkwood Entertainment management company, Melissa Vargas. “Being her brand manager, I know what levels she is willing to expose and what she’s not,” says Vargas. “And she’s a very, very private person.”

  Therein lies the problem she faced with the documentary Life Is But a Dream: Would it be possible to talk on camera about her life in an authentic, honest way, all the while picking and choosing which elements to reveal and how they should be explored? Doesn’t the fact that the production is being shared with the public at all make it just another PR endeavor, another tool for careful branding? From all accounts, Beyoncé really wasn’t considering these questions when she released Life Is But a Dream in February 2013, but perhaps she should have been. As its executive producer, codirector, and cowriter, she had just one intention with her documentary, though: She wanted it to be revealing and candid—to a point.

  The film opened with footage and platitudes about the home Beyoncé and her family shared in the Third Ward of Houston. “I remember the moss on the trees,” she said. “That house is my foundation.” Of course, the most interesting aspect of the story behind this house isn’t the moss on the trees that surround it, it’s the fact that the family had to sell it rather than lose it at foreclosure since all of their money had been spent on furthering Beyoncé’s career. With the absence of this subtext, it quickly became clear that she would not be putting forth the whole truth for public consumption, just parts of it.

  She spoke about her father. “My dad knew that I needed his approval,” she said. “And I think my father wouldn’t give it to me. He kept pushing me and kept pushing me and kept pushing me.” Quickly putting a positive spin on things, she added, “Every time he pushed me, I got better and I got stronger.”

  To her credit, she did speak about the complexity of her relationship with Mathew in a more candid way than ever before. “I’m feeling very empty because of my relationship with my dad,” she said. “I’m so fragile at this point and I feel like my soul has been tarnished. Life is unpredictable but I felt like I had to move on and not work with my dad. And I don’t care if I don’t sell one record. It’s bigger than the record. It’s bigger than my career.”

  She continued by explaining some of the reasons behind her decision to let Mathew go. “I think one of the biggest reasons I decided it was time for me to manage myself was because at some point you need your support system and you need your family,” she said. “When you’re trying to have an everyday conversation with your parents and you have to talk about scheduling, and you have to talk about your album and performing and touring, it’s just too stressful and it really affects your relationship. I needed boundaries, and I think my dad needed boundaries. It’s really easy to get confused with this world that’s your job that you live and breathe every day all day and then you don’t know when to turn it off. You need a break. I needed a break. I needed my dad.”

  The off-camera interviewer then asked, “And did you get your dad back?”

  Becoming emotional, she answered, “No. It was hard. I had to sacrifice my relationship with my dad. It was a stressful, sad, difficult time, but I had to let go.”

  All of what she had to say was true, but obviously there was so much more to the story, especially concerning the audit she had conducted of Mathew and how she truly felt a
bout it. Also, what about her feelings on his relationship with AlexSandra Wright and the baby they had together, all of which played a part in her decision-making process where he was concerned? Obviously, she wanted to give of herself, but certainly not all of herself. Wasn’t it, then, business as usual—picking and choosing what to share with the public, the only difference being that what she now shared was slightly more, though not totally, revealing?

  Most reviewers dismissed the documentary as yet another attempt by Beyoncé to control her brand. “Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream is as contrived as Madonna: Truth or Dare,” wrote Alessandra Stanley for the New York Times, referring to Madonna’s popular 1991 documentary, “but probably for good reason it is neither daring nor entirely truthful. It’s an infomercial, not just about Beyoncé’s talent onstage but her authenticity behind the scenes. She is a people-pleasing diva and she wants to keep it that way. This documentary doesn’t really convey what life as a celebrity is like, but it does say a lot about how this celebrity would like to be seen.”

  The vast majority of critics agreed with the Times. Writing for the New Yorker, Judy Rosen observed, “Life Is But a Dream purports to offer a behind-the-scenes look at Beyoncé’s life, but the nature of modern-pop mega stardom—the nature of Beyoncé herself—ensures that nothing will be exposed; the curtain is yanked back to reveal another curtain.”

  Beyoncé was said to be hurt and perplexed by the reviews, and to this day doesn’t know what to make of them. Whereas she views almost everything as a learning experience, she still hasn’t figured out what to glean from the experience of Life Is But a Dream. “I was really trying to do something genuine and was accused of doing just the opposite,” she said privately.

  Of course, her fans will always be less critical of these sorts of endeavors, and maybe that’s what matters most. Beyoncé understands and appreciates her fan base and seems to know exactly what they want from her, what will satisfy them most. If there were any missteps with Life Is But a Dream, they didn’t matter to her devoted (and extremely protective) fan base, which has in recent years become known as “the Beyhive.” Indeed, as long as she can keep the “hive” satisfied, maybe she needn’t worry about her critics.

  PART SEVEN

  Run the World

  Blue Ivy

  Though some considered it a career misfire, going back and remembering her formative years with Girls Tyme for Life Is But a Dream had special meaning for Beyoncé Knowles, especially considering that she was now pregnant with her first child. Telling Jay they were expecting was a moment she has said she will never forget, and then sharing the news with her mother made the day all the more complete. Announcing it then to the world on the MTV Video Music Awards in 2011, after a stunning Motown-influenced performance of her old-school hit “Love on Top”—which had won the Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance—was something else she’d never forget. After she finished the song, she tossed the mike to the floor; it landed with a thud. Then she fluffed up her long blonde locks, unbuttoned her purple sequin Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo jacket to reveal just her white silk blouse, put her hands on the hips of her elastic-waisted pants, and stuck out her tummy, rubbing it with a glowing smile on her face. It was her way of confirming her pregnancy to the entire world. The place went wild. As people stood up and cheered all around Jay in the audience, Kanye West began jumping all over him in excitement. Twitter records indicate that 8,868 tweets went out per second from people sharing the news with one another.

  On the whole, Beyoncé’s actual pregnancy was not difficult for her. However, dealing with tabloid speculation about it was truly exhausting, especially coming to terms with the rumor she’d earlier mentioned to Daryl Simmons—that she wasn’t really expecting at all.

  This story took wing when Beyoncé appeared on the television program Sunday Night in Australia, interviewed by Molly Meldrum. As she sat down, it appeared that her stomach had collapsed under her. It wasn’t much of a moment but it definitely gave rumormongers a lot to work with. The speculation was that she was wearing some sort of fake pregnancy apparatus because she and Jay had hired a surrogate to carry a child for them. Why? Supposedly so that the image-conscious Beyoncé wouldn’t ruin her figure. No doubt, if AlexSandra Wright’s assertion that Mathew had suggested she allow their child to be raised by Beyoncé had been made public, that revelation would have raised more than a few eyebrows during this time of rampant conjecture.

  The story soon became major news; all of the networks in the United States carried it on their news broadcasts, even CNN. If the public wants to believe a rumor badly enough—and apparently many people wanted to believe this one—it will find many reasons, even if they are not logical, to confirm it. (There are still people who maintain that Beyoncé is a member of the Illuminati, for instance, with pretty much no evidence to support the claim. Incidentally, she is not.)

  It was said that Beyoncé hadn’t sat down on the Australia program the way a truly pregnant woman would “normally” do so. Then, as people closely examined photographs of her to determine how big (or small) her “baby bump” was, she was accused of giving conflicting reports as to when she was due—more supposed proof of a grand deception. And why, the conspiracists demanded to know, weren’t there more clear pictures of her pregnant stomach?

  If one examines the scandalous Aussie footage in question, it’s clear that Beyoncé’s red dress is merely folding under as she sits down. “It was a fabric that folded—does fabric not fold? Oh my gosh, so stupid,” she observed.

  What people didn’t know, because she and Jay had kept it to themselves until she revealed it on her documentary, was that a couple years earlier Beyoncé had suffered a miscarriage. Therefore it felt particularly hurtful to her to know that there were people who believed she was faking a pregnancy. “To think that I would be that vain,” she said. “I respect mothers and women so much, and to be able to experience bringing a child into this world—if you’re lucky and fortunate enough to experience that—I would never ever take that for granted. I mean, it’s the most powerful thing you can do in your life. And especially after losing a child, the pain and trauma from that just makes it mean so much more to get an opportunity to bring life into the world. It’s something that you have to respect. There just seems like people should have boundaries. There’s certain things that you don’t play around with. And a child, you don’t play around with that.”

  When it came to childbirth, Beyoncé couldn’t help but be a little frightened. She’d always envied women who wanted multiple children, because she couldn’t imagine having even one. She knew it would be painful, and she has a very low threshold for pain. Simple dental work can be a major ordeal for her. Plus, she’d been in the delivery room when Solange had her baby, and she admitted to being slightly “traumatized” by the experience. “I just had to remember that my body was made to do this,” she recalled, “and that women have been doing it just fine for centuries, so why should I be any different?”

  On January 7, 2012, with Jay at her side, Beyoncé gave birth to a baby girl, Blue Ivy Carter, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. For the birth, the Carters booked an entire wing of the hospital. Of course, when the press got wind of those accommodations it made her and Jay sound ridiculous and self-indulgent. In fact, Beyoncé can’t just check into a hospital and have a baby like other women. A circus of media follows her wherever she goes. Plus, there’s so much interest in her life, there’s no way for her to have a private experience in a public place. Such special accommodations for celebrities are not at all unusual anyway. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, for instance, caters to many celebrity mothers and offers a “Deluxe Maternity Suite” for about $4,000 a night. Said a representative of Lenox Hill, “Our executive suites are available for any patient, including the food service and amenities provided to the Carter family.” He added that the Carters were “billed the standard rate for those accommodations.”

  Still, it could be said that Beyoncé and
Jay went overboard to guarantee their privacy. Lenox Hill Hospital allowed them to modify the private suite, and that is unusual. Did the Carters’ teams really need to install a bulletproof door? That they did so speaks perhaps to the actions of a security team paid huge amounts of money to do something, so . . . why not that?

  Making other patients very unhappy was that windows in the nearby neonatal ICU were blacked out so that nobody could see Beyoncé or her family when they were coming or going down the hallway to the Carters’ suite, especially on the day she was to give birth. Also, the movement of new parents was severely restricted lest they accidentally run into Beyoncé or Jay Z. Many complaints were lodged about it to the press.

  In Beyoncé’s defense, it’s a difficult situation, one not easily handled, when a woman who is a public figure would just as soon not be photographed while in labor and being pushed on a gurney from one room to another in a hospital. The fact remains that most people these days have smartphones and many would be quite open to the opportunity of taking photos of a superstar in labor and then selling them to an eager tabloid press. Given that stark reality, maybe it’s easy to understand how a celebrity like Beyoncé might become somewhat overreactive about security concerns, so much so that someone on her team asked hospital workers to cover the lenses of security cameras on her floor with black tape. One consequence of all of this caution is that not many people saw Beyoncé in the throes of labor, and those who did were certainly not talking about it, which only served to fuel those pesky rumors that she was never pregnant.

  Beyoncé and Jay had the name Blue Ivy picked out long before the baby was born. There have been many reports that the color is Jay’s favorite. “My favorite hue is Jay Z blue,” he rapped in “Go Crazy” with Young Jeezy. He also released three critically acclaimed Blueprint albums in 2001, 2002, and 2009. “Ivy is for the Roman numeral number IV,” explained Larry Beyincé. He also cited the numeral 4 as being significant in her life.