On August 28, 2011 at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, Knowles announced that she and Jay-Z are expecting their first child. She made the announcement during her red carpet appearance and again at the end of her performance of “Love on Top”. The Huffington Post later confirmed that Knowles is 5 months pregnant and her pregnancy announcement had broken the “most tweets per second recorded for a single event” Twitter record, receiving 8,868 tweets per second.
MTV reported that Knowles’ performance of “Love on Top” and the announcement of her pregnancy at the awards ceremony helped the 2011′s MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers.
In addition, data from Google Insights showed that the most searched for term from August 29, 2011 to September 4, 2011 was “Beyonce pregnant” which reached ‘breakout’ levels – a term used by Google to describe a search with an increase of over 5,000 percent. Knowles’ announcement of her pregnancy resulted in an increase in sales of her records, particularly 4, which had sold around 700,000 copies by August 2011. As of December 2011, 4 has sold more than 1,000,000 copies in the United States.
In October 2011, during an appearance on the Australian television program, Sunday Night, Knowles’ pregnant belly appeared to collapse inwardly as she sat down on a chair. Following the interview, rumors then began circulating online that Knowles was faking her pregnancy and is actually wearing a prosthetic pregnant belly. However, Knowles’ representative later issued a statement to ABC News, saying that the rumors are “stupid, ridiculous and false”. On October 8, a pre-taped performance of Knowles performing Michael Jackson’s “I Wanna Be Where You Are” was shown at the “Michael Forever” tribute concert at Millenium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.On November 30, 2011, Knowles received two nominations for 54th Grammy Awards; Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for “Party”, and Best Long Form Music Video for I Am… World Tour.In December 2011, it was revealed that Knowles was working with The-Dream to record new music. In an interview with The BoomBox, The-Dream explained, “She’s ready to work … She’s crazy! She never stops doing anything. I don’t know if [pregnancy] is going to slow her down. She’s just incredible with doing things, I don’t know how she’s going to do it, she’s just a maniac … in a good way.
