Beyoncé graces the cover of the coveted September issue of Vogue magazine but doesn’t say one word within the pages of the fashion publication.
The New York Times is calling out Vogue and Beyoncé for this rare occasion where the cover star is not interviewed.
The Vogue photo shoot with Queen Bey is instead accompanied by a short essay on her star quality penned by Margo Jefferson.
“It was definitely posed to me as … call it a think piece if you want,” Ms. Jefferson tells the Times. “I had no contact with her camp.”
“She has to be studying how effective her interviews have been so far. She may have decided that they do not contribute as dazzlingly to the portrait of Beyoncé as the other stuff. It’s a perfectly reasonable decision.”
The Times details the past five years’ worth of cover articles and indicates that Beyoncé is the only celebrity cover star not to “submit” to some type of interview.
In 2009 and 2013, for Beyoncé’s two previous Vogue covers she did.
When models appear on the cover, as in the case of last September’s issue, they typically do not get the same profile treatment, but even the “Instagirls” of September 2014 — Cara Delevingne, Karlie Kloss, et al. — answered a few questions online. Not only did Michelle Obama agree to an interview when she appeared on the cover in 2013, she even brought along her husband.
Beyoncé has 43.5 million followers on Instagram and 14.1 million followers on Twitter. She especially uses Instagram as her platform for engaging with her fans and giving a statement, if any, on issues close to her heart.
Bey didn’t grant an interview this time around but dedicated several Instagram posts to her Vogue spread, generating millions of likes and comments.
She even shared an throwback photo of her daughter Blue Ivy from her 2013 Vogue shoot.
At some point around 2013 to 2014, Beyoncé seemed to have stopped giving face-to-face interviews.
In May, a member of her team told a New York Times reporter writing a piece about her and Jay Z’s vegan diets that “despite numerous appearances, she had not answered a direct question in more than a year.”
Beyoncé, via her spokeswoman, declined to comment to the New York Times regarding why no interview was included in her latest Vogue cover.