Beyonce's Vogue Cover Comes With a Silent Twist

It seems Beyonce hasn't given an actual, in-person interview for a year or two, and the media is having to get pretty creative to cover that fact up. The music superstar has the coveted cover in the huge September issue of Vogue, thus becoming the first female black musician—and only the third solo black woman—to land the spot, reports Billboard. According to the New York Times, getting the Vogue cover usually means letting some "juicy" personal details slip while pretending to enjoy spending time with the interviewer. But not this time: There is no interview. Instead, Vogue will run an essay on Bey's "star quality" from a writer who didn't even talk to anyone associated with her.

The Times looked back at five years of Vogue covers and found this to be a first. It follows similar workarounds—a profile of her associates, poetry made from "remixed" interviews—from other publications that recently featured photo shoots with Beyonce. It's not clear why she stopped giving interviews, though some theorize she realized she comes off "daffy" in them or is attempting a "reclamation of privacy," notes the Times. Regardless, her reticence for face time with reporters certainly hasn't hurt her omnipresence. Billboard reports Beyonce is currently the 13th most-popular artist on social media—up from 37th—thanks in part to the Vogue cover. (More Beyonce stories.)