How Did Beyoncé Keep Her Pregnancy So Secret?!

Pregnancy stories, true and false, have constantly followed the singer and hubby and Jay-Z. Here's how they kept the public clueless

How did Beyoncé keep her baby news so secret?
—Jennifer Beard, via Facebook

Beyoncé may enjoy a reputation as music's classiest broad, but she's also the canniest. Madame Z knows exactly how to play the media—not with the old-school Jolie-style thuggery, but in a more modern way, one that employs stealth and guile.

Want to learn to some of Beyoncé's shadow assassin moves?

When some stars want to avoid revealing personal secrets, they simply bully the media. Angelina Jolie forced reporters to sign a gag agreement in exchange for an interview, for example. Beyoncé easily could have taken a similar tack, say, ordering her publicists to blackball reporters who may have heard about the pregnancy early. But from what I hear, that isn't what happened here. Instead, Beyoncé kept the rumors from emerging in the first place.

How?

Well, one tactic was in place before she even got pregnant: geography. Most paparazzi are concentrated in Los Angeles. And that's not a big hangout for Beyoncé.

"Beyoncé has always been a tough subject to keep track of," says Justin Smith of the photo agency Fame Pictures. "She's very calculated about letting herself get photographed and she spends so much time outside of L.A., that we don't invest a lot in working on her."

And when she has been photographed in the past few months, she's been very, very careful about it. I partnered with E! Online's own crack photo editor Lindsay Scheinberg to do some heavy digging into Beyoncé's recent public dealings, and we found a few trends. First, Scheinberg has noted a change in the types of appearances Beyoncé has done in recent weeks.

"She's been shot more during concerts rather that out and about in public," which, in turn, allowed Beyoncé to have more control over lighting and angles. Heck, she could even dictate exactly where concert photographers could shoot her if she needed to, and then never turn quite all the way, know what I mean?

One more major tool in Beyoncé's arsenal: a change in wardrobe.

A dimmer starlet might have opted for the same tight tees she always wears, leaving her publicists to crush any reporters who speculated about a baby bump. Instead, Beyoncé, literally, cut loose. Or, looser. Her concert costumes grew more forgiving, and when she did go out to private functions—such as an Aug. 1 record release party for pal Kelly Rowland—she also kept her clothes loose.

No bump to see, no bump to gossip over. Sweet, simple, effective.