Wait—Has Beyoncé Been Secretly Pregnant THIS WHOLE TIME?
Beyoncé has been wearing some truly enormous clothes lately.
This fact, taken on its own, doesn't reveal much: Wearing another person's giant clothing keeps Beyoncé' humble; Beyoncé is wealthy and can afford extra fabric. But for some of us at Gawker, this realization prompted a whiplash flashback sequence like the one that occurs at the end of The Sixth Sense, when a ghost realizes he was famous American film actor Bruce Willis the whole time.
Whooooooooosh! Beyoncé wore a huge coat to the premiere of the new Annie movie.
Whooooooooosh! Beyoncé did not drink a beer at Monday night's Nets game.
Whooooooooosh! Do Beyoncé's arms look softer?
Whooooooooosh! Beyoncé's hair looks dark now.
Whooooooooosh! Bruce Willis' wife ignored him at their anniversary dinner, like she didn't even see him.
Whooooooooosh! Beyoncé...is pregnant? And has been since roughly August.
What follows is the case.
Whooooooooosh! Photographic Physical Evidence
Until Beyoncé and Jay Z overcome the bizarre trust issues that prevent them from releasing their medical records to the public directly, old fashioned eye-balling will tell us more about their current physical states than anything else.
The first faint evidence that Beyoncé might be pregnant with another child arrived this past August, all bundled up in a jeweled mosaic leotard. It was the VMA's.
On the far left is a photograph of Beyoncé performing a tribute to Beyoncé at the climax of the MTV Video Music awards on August 24th, 2014. On the right, is a photograph of Beyoncé taken several months earlier on January 26th, 2014 when she opened up the Grammys with a performance of "Drunk in Love" alongside husband Jay Z.
Both Beyoncé's are trim, and no protruding pregnant belly is visible either picture. B ut the Beyoncé of late summer looks fleshier. More rounded. Softer overall. This is because she is pregnant with the child of Beyoncé.
Up until just a few weeks ago, Beyoncé, whose powerful stomach muscles make her one of America's most awesome and terrifying natural resources, did not shy away from sporting form-fitting clothing. Here she is on November 16, wearing a skintight white dress to her sister Solange's wedding. Since then—on the rare occasions she has been photographed in public (another baby pink flag)—Beyoncé's apparel has been noticeably looser.
She wore a black and white sack to the Annie premiere.
She wore a red sack in Williamsburg.
She wore a weird lumpy short-sleeved blouse to Monday night's Nets game.
Let us be clear here: It is not Beyoncé that looks weird and lumpy. It is the shirt. Beyoncé looks divine. She is glowing. She is pregnant.
Whooooooooosh! What She's Been Drankin'
Not definitively alcohol. On Monday night, Beyoncé was photographed holding what could be either a vodka soda, a gin and tonic, a seltzer, a water, or a giant cup of spit that she dropped a lime into. In video from the event, she and Jay Z can be seen negotiating their way through some kind of beverage mix-em-up with a waiter: You hold these drinks—Now what's this drink?—You take that drink—I'll take this drink—This drink his drink—Red drink blue drink.
Is Jay Z dutifully making sure pregnant Beyoncé is given water and not alcohol? It's possible, but hard to say for sure. (It does look like Beyoncé ends up with a bubble-less drink, while Jay Z hands one with bubbles back to the waiter.)
What is interesting here is what the drink definitively is not: It is not beer, which she chugged at this Knicks game while wearing sunglasses indoors. It is not champagne, which she sipped at this Nets game while eating a lollipop. It is not a lemon drop shot, served to her by her hunchbacked butler Drake, to the delight of her husband with the Roosevelt grin.
Moreover, three weeks ago, paparazzi captured Beyoncé drinking an XL Slurpee from 7-Eleven while leaving her office in Midtown Manhattan.
The second most interesting thing about the image to the left is that it depicts Beyoncé drinking an ice cold Slurpee in chilly November—an odd beverage choice for anyone other than a pregnant woman with a craving. Her purse is so cold she wrapped it in a warm fur coat.
The most interesting thing about this image is that the photo agency responsible for this picture (Splash) captioned it "Beyoncé smears her thick lipstick all over her straw while drinking an XL slurpee (299 calories) when heading out of her office in NYC," which sounds vaguely pornographic, and puts a curious emphasis on the caloric content of Beyoncé's drink.
Note that, per the U.S. National Library of Medicine, pregnant women require an extra 300 calories from food per day.
Whooooooooosh! Rock-a-Bey Beybey
Early last month, video surfaced of Beyoncé silently rocking herself back and forth, back and forth, back and forth while watching a Nets game, or perhaps something more interesting on an astral plane no one else could see. At the time, many interpreted the eerie rhythmic rocking as a sign Beyoncé had possessed by a demon, and that her pure soul was lost forever. But check out the potential side effects of Zofran, a medication prescribed to combat severe morning sickness:
Common side effects of Zofran include diarrhea, headache, fever, lightheadedness, dizziness, drowsiness, constipation, rash, blurred vision and muscle spasm.
Perhaps she was not plagued by a demon, but rather by her own darling baby.
Whooooooooosh! Remember September?
Back in September, rumors started swirling that Beyoncé was once again pregnant, after the Internet latched onto a dubious claim of unknown origin that Jay Z altered some lyrics from his song "Beach Is Better" to reference a second pregnancy while in Paris for the couple's On The Run tour. In fan-shot video purportedly of that performance, it's unclear whether Jay Z is indeed saying, as the rumor claims, "...and she pregnant with another one," or if he's simply reciting the original lyrics: "I replace it with another one." To me it sounds like "bah pizzit wih duhduh one."
The baby chatter died down after a snapshot of Beyoncé toasting with—but not drinking—what appeared to be a glass of champagne at the conclusion of the Paris show was released online. It died down because Beyoncé and Jay Z never confirmed the rumor. But they also never denied it.
The human gestation period is roughly nine months. The public's attention span is much shorter. Predicting pregnancies with nothing to go on but a calendar, a few paparazzi shots, and a perfect and absolute certainty in your heart that Beyoncé is pregnant is a tricky business. But if Beyoncé really did become pregnant at the end of the summer, there's no reason to expect she would have informed the public at that time. After the initial flurry of guesses, people stopped talking about if she was pregnant. She was able to have at least one trimester in peace.
She and the Duchess of Cambridge reportedly discussed their children at Monday night's Nets game.
Congrats on your second pregnancy, Beyoncé.
