Beyonce covers the October issue of GQ. She’s blonde these days! The editorial is really sexy and va-va-voom. While Beyonce’s haircare line (Cécred) gets a shoutout, Beyonce is mostly promoting her new whiskey line, SirDavis. For many years now, Beyonce flatly refuses to do traditional interviews, but she will now email with magazine journalists, which is how GQ got an interview with her. She’s very funny, and I suspect she just prefers time to gather her thoughts and edit herself, thus the email Q&A. You can see the full piece here. Some highlights:
Her life & her diet these days: “Our home is alive with cousins and friends, spontaneous talent shows, and the clatter of dominoes. I’ve been trying to focus on my health, taking my supplements, and eating very clean. I’ve given up meat, except for turkey, this summer.
Why she launched her own whiskey line: “I’ll never forget the first day I had whiskey. It spoke to me nice. I remember thinking, Why have I never had this before? It was strong and warm, just the right amount of challenge. I loved the process, the ritual of it. Whiskey isn’t something you just shoot down. It’s a commitment. You gotta have patience. I like that. Then I got into vintage Japanese whiskey and started doing tastings. It opened up a whole new world. I love everything about whiskey. The color, the smell, the way it dances in the glass.… And I love the stories that come with it. Every bottle has a history. I also like introducing whiskey to people who don’t know they love it yet. I think a lot more women would love it if they tasted it, and if they were really spoken to by the whiskey world. Whiskey isn’t just for old men in smoky bars; it’s for anyone who appreciates depth, complexity, and a bit of mystery.
Why she named her album ‘Cowboy Carter’: “I wanted everyone to take a minute to research on the word cowboy. History is often told by the victors. And American history? It’s been rewritten endlessly. Up to a quarter of all cowboys were Black. These men faced a world that refused to see them as equal, yet they were the backbone of the cattle industry. The cowboy is a symbol of strength and aspiration in America. The cowboy was named after slaves who handled the cows. The word cowboy comes from those who were called boys, never given the respect they deserved. No one would dare call a Black man handling cows “Mister” or “Sir.”
She doesn’t want people to have access to her kids: “ One thing I’ve worked extremely hard on is making sure my kids can have as much normalcy and privacy as possible, ensuring my personal life isn’t turned into a brand. It’s very easy for celebrities to turn our lives into performance art. I have made an extreme effort to stay true to my boundaries and protect myself and my family. No amount of money is worth my peace.”
Raising three kids: “I build my work schedule around my family. I try to only tour when my kids are out of school. I always dreamt of a life where I could see the world with my family and expose them to different languages, architecture, and lifestyles. Raising three kids isn’t easy. The older they get, the more they become their own individuals with unique needs, hobbies, and social lives. My twins are God-sent. Parenting constantly teaches you about yourself. It takes a lot of prayer and patience. I love it. It’s grounding and fulfilling.
On not releasing visuals for her last two albums: “I thought it was important that during a time where all we see is visuals, that the world can focus on the voice. The music is so rich in history and instrumentation. It takes months to digest, research, and understand. The music needed space to breathe on its own. Sometimes a visual can be a distraction from the quality of the voice and the music. The years of hard work and detail put into an album that takes over four years! The music is enough. The fans from all over the world became the visual. We all got the visual on tour. We then got more visuals from my film.
What music she’s listening to these days: “I love and respect all of the female singers-songwriters who are out right now.… Raye, Victoria Monét, Sasha Keable, Chloe x Halle, and Reneé Rapp. I love Doechii and GloRilla, and I just heard That Mexican OT, he’s from Houston…. He goes hard! I really like “Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter, and I think that Thee Sacred Souls and Chappell Roan are talented and interesting..But the truth is, I spend most of my time listening to the classics, like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and music from artists on the Stax label. I just watched that documentary. It’s so good! I highly recommend it. The best movie I’ve seen this year is Inside Out 2. I think it’s brilliant, and I’m currently watching House of the Dragon and The Chi.
I just read a theory online, from a member of the Beyhive, about Beyonce’s answer on the no-visuals thing. It really is bizarre, because as she began to promote Act i: Renaissance, it felt like she was teasing a larger visual project. Maybe not on the scale of Lemonade, but definitely more visuals than what we got (bupkis). Anyway, the theory was that Beyonce fully intended to release videos or some kind of visual project to accompany Renaissance, but something happened and she didn’t like whatever got produced. Beyonce is famously a detail-oriented perfectionist, so it makes perfect sense to me that she tried to produce something, didn’t like it and then just pretended that she was never going to do any visuals. Maybe Cowboy Carter was different – she was like, hey, after what happened with Renaissance, why bother? What’s weird is that I would have much preferred visuals for Cowboy Carter. There are so many songs which are crying out for amazing music videos.
Cover & IG courtesy of GQ.