This month, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter turns 34, and what a life she's had thus far...
From her upbringing in Houston, Texas in the Eighties, where she entered singing and dancing competitions, to forming a girl group managed by her father, under the name 'Destiny's Child'; from the band's first number one single Bills, Bills, Bills, to embarking on a solo career which has subsequently led to her title as 'the most nominated woman' in Grammy history – Beyoncé has succeeded at every level.
And so to celebrate her overwhelming success, we take look back at her biggest and best achievements to date.
GRAMMYS
How many Grammy's has Beyoncé won? Five? Ten? 15...?
Nope! Beyoncé has won 20 Grammys – yes, 20. How many times has she been nominated? 25, 30, 40...?
All wrong. Beyoncé has been nominated no less than 53 times. This makes her, as previously mentioned, the most nominated woman in Grammy history, and the sixth most nominated person ever (Quincy Jones, with 79 nominations, leads the list).
In 2006, she broke the record for the most Grammys won in one night by a female artist, taking home six of the awards – an achievement only matched by Adele in 2012. Indeed, out of all Grammy-winning female artists, Beyoncé has bagged the second highest number, beaten only by country singer Alison Krauss (who has thus far won 27). In view of which, it is safe to say that Queen Bey rules the Grammys. RULES.
SUCCESS FACTS & STATS
Beyoncé has sold over 15 million albums in the US, and over 118 million records worldwide. But that doesn't include the 'mere' 60 million records she sold during her time in Destiny's Child. This makes her one of the best-selling music artists of *all time, *ahead of Aretha Franklin and even Bob Marley.
*Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) *is one of the best selling digital singles of all time too, having sold 7.7million copies so far, since its release in 2008.
In 2009, Billboard named Beyoncé the 'Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade', the 'Top Female Artist of the 2000s' and their 'Artist of the Millennium' in 2011. Leading from this, Time magazine also named her one of the '100 Most Influential People In The World' in 2013 and 2014. This year, Forbes magazine heralded her the 'Most Powerful Female Musician Of 2015'. And as a result, Beyoncé now has an estimated net worth of $250million. After all that, we'd say she deserves it.
Until last month – as we reported here – Beyoncé had the most followers on Instagram. Now with a total of 44,697,715 (at the time of writing, according to Social Blade), Beyoncé is the third most followed person on the social media site.
The most followed person, incidentally, is not a singer but reality TV star Kim Kardashian-West, whilst the second most followed is musician Taylor Swift.
To put Beyoncé's tally into perspective, 44,697,715 is roughly 9million more than the population of Canada – and roughly four times the population of Ireland. So 44.6million is really no mean feat...
US VOGUE
This year, Beyoncé also broke a record for US Vogue, becoming the first black singer to appear on the style bible's September issue cover, and only the third black woman granted the honour in the magazine's history.
In a dazzling shoot, photographed by Mario Testino, Beyoncé appeared beneath the cover line 'Just B – Beyoncé And The Art Of World Domination'.
Well, if she's conquered US Vogue, what else is there?
MOTHER & WIFE
Not only did she have her beautiful daughter, Blue Ivy, in January 2012 (having announced her pregnancy – oh-so-cooly onstage – at the MTV VMAs the previous year) but she also married the most financially successful hip hop artist and entrepreneur in the US, Jay Z, who is himself one of the best-selling artists of all time too. Snap!
And her daughter Blue created this adorable birthday card for her Mum:
We could go on listing even more of this supremely talented singer's achievements - she's the highest paid black celebrity ever, for instance...
Put simply, if there is anyone in the whole world we'd want to be, it's: B.
Happy Birthday Bey.