Queen Bey is at it again! Vogue dropped its September 2018 issue on Monday, September 6, with a radiant yet understated Beyoncé appearing on the cover. Photographed by 23-year-old Tyler Mitchell (at the request of Beyoncé), it is the first time a Vogue cover has been shot by an African American, and the historic edition also marks the music icon’s fourth appearance on the fashion bible’s cover. Oh, and it’s her second September issue (i.e. the most important tome of the year). But rather than appear all glammed up for the occasion, Bey kept her makeup minimal and hair free of wigs and extensions, and she had the most empowering reason for her stripped-down style.
Instead of granting the mag a traditional interview, Beyoncé instead wrote intimate long captions to accompany Mitchell’s photographs, in which she discusses her experience as an African American woman in Hollywood, her family ancestry, the health scare she faced after giving birth to twins Rumi and Sir in June 2017 and how that has changed her perception of beauty.
“After the birth of my first child, I believed in the things society said about how my body should look,” she writes in Vogue. “I put pressure on myself to lose all the baby weight in three months, and scheduled a small tour to assure I would do it. Looking back, that was crazy … After the twins, I approached things very differently.”
She shares that she was 218 pounds on the day she gave brith to Rumi and Sir, and she underwent “an emergency C-section” that resulted in the twins spending “many weeks” in the NICU. Beyoncé says that the surgery left her core feeling “different,” and she promised herself that she would take the necessary time to heal.
“During my recovery, I gave myself self-love and self-care, and I embraced being curvier. I accepted what my body wanted to be,” she explains. “After six months, I started preparing for Coachella … But I was patient with myself and enjoyed my fuller curves.”
With this in mind, Bey writes it is why she “stripped away the wigs and hair extensions and used little makeup for this shoot.” She hopes doing so will encourage women and men alike to “see and appreciate the beauty in their natural bodies.”
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Sporting jaw-dropping floral headpieces, beautiful braids and glowing skin, the photographs (which Beyoncé was reportedly given an unprecedented amount of creative control over) radiate warmth and beauty. And while she says that when she is ready “to get a six-pack” again, she will “go into beast zone” until she has it, she is perfectly at ease with her body and herself.
“I have a little mommy pouch, and I’m in no rush to get rid of it,” she shares. “I think it’s real.”
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