“I had just turned 21, and this was my first solo video. I wanted to be a female version of James Dean and wear an iconic white T-shirt and jean shorts. I always think about wearing something a fan could buy and make her own; as a young girl I remember seeing so many artists, and then I’d try to dress like them. I sewed zippers on my jackets to be like Michael Jackson.
I’m wearing red pumps in the video. As a child I trained myself to dance in very high heels. At 13, in Destiny’s Child, we were told to wear heels, but at first we couldn’t walk in them. We couldn’t keep our knees straight. But we learned, and that became the image of Destiny’s Child: so young and so glamorous. Now I have a rule that my dancers have to wear their heels when I’m wearing my heels. They say, ‘Please take your shoes off, Beyoncé.’ At home, I’m always barefoot. And I have a heavy walk without heels. When they hear me thumping through the house, they say, ‘Oh—Beyoncé’s up!’”
