Only an artist like Beyonce can make the world stop whenever she makes a move.
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From her Destiny’s Child days to being a global superstar, Beyonce has been a constant presence on our screens and playlists for decades. But despite being one of the most famous people in the world, Queen Bey still knows how to deliver a good surprise that has people literally stopping in their tracks. It’s not easy to be a known figure yet still keep fans guessing about your next move, but when you’re Beyonce, anything is possible.
After all, a queen moves at her own pace. One day you’re minding your business. and the next, you’re racing to check out Beyonce’s latest drop that can come out of nowhere. So, scroll down for a few moments when the multi-hyphenate superstar left the world shaking in its boots.
HER FIRST PREGNANCY ANNOUNCEMENT
Ah, now that’s pop culture history. The year was 2011, and Beyonce was slated to perform Love on Top at the MTV VMAs. On a night that saw, among other things, Britney Spears receive the Video Vanguard Award and Lady Gaga dress in boy drag to debut her Jo Calderone persona, standing out in a packed show was no walk in the park. But that’s exactly what Beyonce did when she removed her jacket at the end of her exceptional performance to debut her baby bump and that she was pregnant with her first child.
It was a moment so iconic, that it held the Twitter record for “most tweets per second recorded for a single event” for a time. Beyonce would gag the world once more with her baby bump in 2017 when she revealed that she was expecting twins on Instagram, with her post breaking the record as the most-liked image on the platform at the time.
DROPPING THE SELF-TITLED ALBUM
The idea of a surprise drop in the music industry is nothing new. But Beyonce took that to the next level, when, out of the blue, she took to social media in December 2013 to announce the surprise drop of her sixth studio titled, Beyonce, which was developed as a visual album. Not only were fans treated to a new Beyonce LP, which housed classics such as Drunk in Love and Partition, but they also got music videos for each track on the album. It was a moment so legendary it inspired the line “World stop… Carry on” in Beyonce’s verse in Feeling Myself.
IN HER COUNTRY ERA
When you’re Beyonce, announcing a new era is not just about dropping promo on social media and calling it a day. As always, the queen kept people guessing until the last minute. During the 2024 Super Bowl, a Verizon commercial she starred in broke the internet, literally, as it followed the musician trying to break the network’s internet with her stunts. Then, she decided to do it in real life by announcing the country-focused act two in the Renaissance Trilogy and surprise dropping two new singles, Texas Hold ‘Em and 16 Carriages.
SURPRISE FORMATION DROP
2016 was a pivotal year for Beyonce, and it began with, you guessed it, a surprise song release with Formation. The track, which served as the first single off her Lemonade album, had social media talking (and white people angry) with how it dug deep into Beyonce’s black roots. A Super Bowl Halftime performance, calls for a Beyonce boycott, the release of the Lemonade album and film, and the Formation World Tour soon followed in what was a crazy time to be a Beyonce stan.
THE START OF THE RENAISSANCE ERA
While Beyonce didn’t go into complete hiding from 2016 to 2022, she did only release one solo studio album not tied to a movie or concert. As you can imagine, fans were starved for new Beyonce music. And that is what she gave when she teased and announced RENAISSANCE, her house-focused album that would kick off a trilogy of new LPs. When BREAK MY SOUL dropped, the people cheered as the Beyonce drought was finally over and got everyone moving and bopping. There’s just something so exciting about being there to witness an artist announce a new era after years of waiting.
HER DUBAI SHOW
When a single show that wasn’t even televised or officially streamed has its own Wikipedia page, you know it’s one for the history books. In January 2023, Beyonce held her first live performance since 2018 for a private show in Dubai to commemorate the opening of the new luxury resort hotel, Atlantis The Royal. It was an invite-only event, so it wasn’t a highly publicized show. But once news spread of Beyonce’s ballad-heavy concert, it became the only thing the internet could talk about with leaked videos flooding the internet. Considering it was this performance that gave us the Drunk in Love Dubai riff, the show was a moment for the fandom.
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