Yesterday, September 4th, was Beyonce’s 35th birthday, and she celebrated in style, with her hubby Jay-Z, out and about in Philly at the Made in America Festival while the beyhive pondered on the greatness that is Beyonce Knowles. Here are five reasons that I came up with, in honor of my queen, Queen Bey…

Her Performance at Obama’s 2009 Inaugural Ball

We all know now that Beyonce rubs shoulders with the Obama’s on a regular basis, but back in 2009, this performance of Etta James’ “At Last” (a character Beyonce SLAYED in Cadillac Records) was our first inkling that she might have some pretty high-up political friends.

Bey Gives Tay Her Moment at the VMAs

We all remember Jay-Z coming out on stage at the 2009 MTV Awards and ruining Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech with his bid for Queen Bey’s “Single Ladies” as best video of “all time”. In true queen fashion, when Bey actually won her award, she invited the 19 year old Taylor Swift to come on stage and enjoy the moment that Jay-Z had taken from her earlier.

The World Was Not Ready for “Beyonce”

While the HBO special “Lemondade” was given with some notice and we all expected music to come afterward, when Queen Bey dropped her first visual album in 2013, the beyhive and fans everywhere had no idea what to expect. Spoilers: It was glorious.

Superbowl 2016

Y’all know Bey is black, right? Well, just in case we had forgotten, the Queen reminded over 114.4 million football fans during her 2016 Superbowl Halftime performance and debut of the song “Formation”, which featured afro’d backup dancers in costumes reminiscent of Black Panther gear of the 1960s and sang (for the first time) about having “hot sauce in her bag…”

SLAY, QUEEN.

BeyGood Gives Back

Did you know that Bey donated her entire salary from Cadillac Records to Phoenix House, and, along with her mother, Tina Knowles, opened The Beyonce Cosmetology Center in Arizona in 2010 for recovering addicts? She also visited Haiti in 2010 with her charity organization, BeyGood. More recently, Bey also helped to raise $82k for the Flint, Michigan water crisis, and worked with the United Way Worldwide, Chime for Change and Global Citizen during her Formation Tour to help raise awareness on global issues.

Hope your birthday was fabulous, Queen!

xoxo C. Diva

Find me over on Twitter and Tumblr rambling, per usual.