Beyoncé
Online

Beyoncé has hit out at the lack of powerful women within the music industry.

“I’m controlling my content, controlling my brand and archiving it for my daughter and making sure she has it and she respects it but there’s not enough of us that become moguls.

"And I think there are many ways to get there,” she said.

The Texan superstar, who has sold 75 million albums and is worth more than $300 million, cites Madonna as an inspiration and has said there are too few women following in her footsteps.

In 2011, Beyoncé appointed herself CEO of her brand after sacking her father as manager.

But it has not all been plain sailing. She said: “I just have memories of when there was no air conditioning in the new building and we didn’t have an office. It was like camping.”

The interview, which appears in the latest issue of The Gentlewoman, also features a shoot by Alasdair McLellan in which Beyoncé appears smiling and almost entirely free from make-up.

The magazine is said to be a favourite with the star who admires its dedication to promoting strong, powerful women.

Penny Martin, editor in chief, said: "It’s an amazing compliment, especially that she engaged so wholeheartedly.

"She knew our magazine well and understood our preference for reality over fantasy."

Be sure to check out tons of new interviews from "Beyoncé: Life Is But A Dream" premiere with both Beyoncé and other celebrities attending the event. Head to E! Online to watch one more video.

Oprah sits down with global superstar, multiplatinum artist and 17-time Grammy winner Beyoncé. Tune in to see Beyoncé open up about her documentary, Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream, her daughter, Blue Ivy, and what Jay-Z is like as a father and a husband.

See more snapshots from Oprah's interview with Beyoncé.

Watch Oprah's interview with Beyoncé on Saturday, February 16, at 8/7c.

Beyonce attends 'Beyonce: Life Is But A Dream' New York Premiere at Ziegfeld Theater on February 12, 2013 in New York City.

Chart-topper, glamour wife, style icon, filmmaker, new mom, business mogul—Beyoncé is at the height of her powers and writing her own script.

Has there ever been a steeper, stranger, more rollicking two-week roller coaster in American pop-cultural life than the one Beyoncé Knowles rode from the middle of January (not long after I interviewed her for Vogue) into early February? The craziness started, of course, with that national anthem on the Capitol steps; Beyoncé’s soaring rendition was lavishly praised at first, but then it was revealed to have been sung to a prerecorded track. The resulting uproar was noisy and blustery and as close to a scandal as Beyoncé had experienced in her life; for an artist accustomed to controlling the narrative, it was unfamiliar, awkward territory. It got nasty—Beyoncé was shoved forward as a symbol of a synthetic generation—and yet she said nothing for ten days, until surfacing in a white Olcay Gulsen minidress at a Super Bowl press conference in New Orleans on January 31. There, she opened by singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” again—clearly live—in a soulful and satisfying and very much Beyoncé way. As a bit of crisis-management stagecraft, it was a knockout, and after Beyoncé sailed through to the “home of the brave,” she smiled and offered two words to her skeptics:

“Any questions?”

Sure, there was still the Super Bowl, perhaps an even more treacherous high wire, given its ludicrous logistics (a megastage to be assembled and stripped apart between halves of a football game) and a global audience in the hundreds of millions. But from the moment Beyoncé appeared at the Superdome midfield, left hand on hip—below an enormous, flaming silhouette of herself, left hand on hip—it was obvious she brought a motive and probably a little bit of a grudge. The Super Bowl is no shrine, and there’s always something a little ridiculous about it (New Kids on the Block once got this gig), but Beyoncé’s performance was conspicuous in its determination to project authenticity: real energy, real dancing, and yes, real-as-hell singing. She powered through a hailstorm of hits, briefly being joined by her Destiny’s Child colleagues Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland for a medley and a brush of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” It was impossible not to be taken by Beyoncé’s sheer relentlessness—in Proenza Schouler boots, no less. It was as if she was chasing all that post-Inauguration doubt down a narrow corridor, blasting a pair of laser guns. Minutes after she finished, almost poetically, the power would bonk out in the Superdome. Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z, sent out a triumphant tweet from the darkness: “Lights out!!! Any questions??”

Millions tuned in to watch the 2013 Super Bowl and Beyoncé’s halftime performance, with a surprise from “Destiny’s Child,” that stole the show.

“Extra’s” AJ Calloway caught up with Bey backstage and she gushed, “I’m feeling so proud, it was a really beautiful day and I’m very happy for Ray . All the hard work, five months of preparation and it was really great.”

The “Single Ladies” singer continued, “It really was a magnificent night for me and the girls… I felt like Alicia and Jennifer Hudson were so classy and beautiful…it was a great night to be a woman and an African-American woman.”

The halftime show was so hot, some joked that it caused a power outage. Alec and Hilaria Baldwin called the performance, “Amazing.” “She just leaves your mouth on the floor... she's incredible... and all three of them together was incredible, it was a great show,” Alec said. John Travolta added, “She killed it, it was awesome.”

Beyonce visits Radio Row at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on January 31, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Beyonce attends the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show Press Conference at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on January 31, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Additional highlights of NFL Network’s Super Bowl XLVII programming include:

NFL-related press conferences live, including team arrivals, player availability, AFC & NFC head coach press conferences (Friday, February 1), Beyonce’s Super Bowl halftime entertainment press conference Thursday, January 31 at 3:00 PM ET, Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year press conference Friday, Feb. 1 at 10:00 AM ET, Don Shula Coach of the Year press conference Friday, Feb. 1 at 10:15 AM ET and Commissioner Goodell’s Super Bowl press conference.

Beyoncé had so much to say in GQ's February cover story. And now, in the wake of that piece (not to mention news of her upcoming Super Bowl reunion with Destiny 's Child and performance at Obama's second inauguration), so do her fans. With the Twittersphere on fire about the GQ article and great Terry Richardson photos, let it never be said that we are not listening. When we read Tweets like this—

Michelle Janaye @michellejanaye
I would love to know what @msamywallace left #out of her cover story on Beyonce https://gqm.ag/Vlccu2 #LetMeSeeYourNotebook. #journostuff

—we got out our notebooks and got busy. Herewith, some outtakes from our interview that address some of the concerns of Beyonce's public:

Less than two days before singing the National Anthem at President Barack Obama's second Inauguration, Beyonce shared with Zap2it her deep feelings about the historic occasion.

"Every time I am overworked and in a stressful situation, I always think about moments like this," she says. "And it makes everything worth while."

A longtime supporter of Obama, Beyonce's voice softens as she says, "My father grew up in Alabama and my father was escorted to school with security guards. He was one of the few African-Americans in school."

Monday's (Dec. 21) public Inauguration of the president falls on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, making the moment even more special.

"There is so much history that we have overcome," Beyonce says. "And we are growing so much. It is so beautiful that I can make my family and my family's legacy proud and it is a huge opportunity, for me."

For someone who has played to huge audiences around the world, and sang "At Last" at one of the inaugural balls, this is so huge, Beyonce pauses.

"I can't really think about it until it is over," she says. "It is too much! There is no way I would be able to sing."

Though she has sung the National Anthem before, notably at the Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, she acknowledges that it is a hard song.

Beyoncé is ready to receive you now. From the chair where she's sitting, in the conference room of her sleek office suite in midtown Manhattan, at a round table elegantly laden with fine china, crisp cloth napkins, and take-out sushi from Nobu, she could toss some edamame over her shoulder and hit her sixteen Grammys, each wall-mounted in its own Plexiglas box. She is luminous, with that perfect smile and smooth coffee skin that shines under a blondish topknot and bangs. Today she's showing none of the bodaciously thick, hush-your-mouth body that's on display onstage, in her videos, and on these pages. This is Business Beyoncé, hypercomposed Beyoncé—fashionable, elegant, in charge. She's wearing the handiwork of no fewer than seven designers, among them Givenchy (the golden pin at her neck), Day Birger et Mikkelsen (her dainty gray-pink petal-collar blouse), Christian Louboutin (her pink five-inch studded heels), and Isabel Marant (her floral pants). She does not get up—a video camera has already been aimed at her face and turned on—so you greet her as you sit down. You have an agreed-upon window of time. Maybe a little more, if she finds you amusing.

You're here to talk about her big post-baby comeback (Blue Ivy, her daughter with Jay-Z, is a year old), which Beyoncé is marking in classic Beyoncé fashion: with a Hydra-headed pop-cultural blitzkrieg. This month, two weeks after she headlines the halftime show at Super Bowl XLVII, she will premiere an HBO "documentary"—more like a visual autobiography—about herself and her family that she financed, directed, produced, narrated, and stars in. This is a woman, after all, who's sold 75 million albums, just signed a $50 million endorsement deal with Pepsi (her flawless visage will festoon actual cans of soda), and will soon embark on a world tour to promote her fifth solo album, as yet untitled, due out as early as April. Who wouldn't want to know how she gets the job done?

Anderson sits down with singer, actress and new mom Beyonce. The star opens up about her 7-month-old daughter, Blue Ivy, and told Anderson that being a mother has changed her life and "gave her purpose."

When she arrived at the hospital last January, Beyoncé came with the best of intentions for her daughter's delivery. "I did have a fresh eyebrow wax," PEOPLE's 2012 Most Beautiful Woman says with a laugh. "I got my nails done, I got my feet done, had my hair done, and I had my little lip gloss." But, in the end, Blue Ivy's birth trumped all the new mom's primping and prepping to meet her baby girl. "I didn't feel that I looked beautiful during birth, but who does? After being pumped with all those fluids and gaining so much weight ... I barely recognized myself," she explains. "But after many hours of labor, I could care less about anything but my child. I didn't care how I looked." The focus, she adds, was shifted to "the miracle" that she and husband Jay-Z welcomed into the world. "I felt more powerful than I've ever felt in my life," Knowles shares. "I felt connected to my body. I felt like I knew my purpose in the world." The singer says she gained 50 pounds during her pregnancy – putting on the last 20 during the final month leading up to the delivery – and was determined to bounce back after baby as soon as possible. "I lost most of my weight from breastfeeding and I encourage women to do it; It's just so good for the baby and good for yourself," Knowles, who breastfed Blue for 10 weeks, says. Then, "about a month after" giving birth, the new mom tackled the remaining pounds with a strict diet and exercise routine. "I counted calories. I worked out maybe three to four times a week," she shares. "I did a lot of walking in the beginning and now I'm running. But I had to work my way up. I couldn't just go right from being pregnant to running." All the hard work – including "staying away from anything delicious" and no cheat days – has paid off. "I'm proud that my waist came back so fast. I'm proud of that and happy, but that was mostly from the breastfeeding," the singer explains. And not only is Knowles just "three to four pounds" away from her pre-pregnancy weight, but she has also acquired a new softness about her voluptuous body. "My hormones are still in my body. Your body produces the hormones that make your body soft," she says. "It's just magical. It makes me so proud to be a woman because it's just unexplainable what happens to your body – it's incredible."