The world may see her as a bootylicious diva but Beyonc Knowles insists she is just a shy, God-fearing country girl. In fact, the former Destiny’s Child singer has insisted that her strutting on-stage performances are not really her but an alter ego called Sasha. She told Vanity Fair magazine that thinking of herself as another person was a good way of boosting her confidence on stage. She said: “At a party I’m not going to go out on the dancefloor. People expect me to go do that but that’s for the stage. What’s more important to me is the way I treat people, what I think, what I give to people. When I go back to Houston and go to church and see those people, I feel like the same country girl.”

She was also keen to correct some ‘crazy gossip’. She dismissed reports that she and her rapper boyfriend Jay- Z were engaged or that she wished to fire her father as managerafter one argument too many. She said of Matthew Knowles: “People think he controls everything, but I actually control everything.”

- This Is London