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Busy Beyonce Tired of 'Booty-This, Booty-That'
33 minutes ago Add Entertainment - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Larry Fine

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Beyonce Knowles (news) helped promote the "booty talk" so prevalent on the pop scene as well as appreciation for a woman's round, tight butt, but the sultry rhythm and blues diva is tired of all the bootylicious babble she has inspired.




"It's really silly. I wrote a song called 'Bootylicious,' maybe three years ago. And now the word is in the dictionary. To be honest, I hate the word," said Knowles, the singer turned actress whose second film, "The Fighting Temptations," opens nationally on Friday.


Knowles, who got her start with the singing group Destiny's Child, which had a number one record when she was 15, has gotten a lot of mileage out of her song and sexy videos celebrating her voluptuous attributes, but the Houston native says it is time to move on.


"I'm getting older," said the 22-year-old Knowles, wearing long, glittering diamond and ruby earrings and a bracelet to match at an interview this week. "I want my style to reflect that."


Knowles, who scored a hit this year with her first solo album, "Dangerously in Love," is certainly not slowing down.


Next week she is meeting with fashion designers about launching her own line and seeing some movie people about her next film project. Then it's off to Rome and Paris to shoot commercials before starting a six-week European concert tour ahead of a January reunion with cohorts Michelle Williams (news) and Kelly Rowland (news) to begin work on a new Destiny's Child record.


Knowles, needless to say, does not shy away from her creative urges and explained the story behind "Bootylicious."


"I'm glad I wrote it. It's a fun song," she said. "It's just a word, like someone is feeling confident. I wrote it because I was gaining weight, and I felt like for all the people that feel like I do right now, I'm going to write this song and make people proud of their curves.


"But now everywhere I go, everybody is saying, 'booty-this' and 'booty-that' and it's really irritating."


Though "The Fighting Temptations," which co-stars Cuba Gooding (news) Jr. and a host of gospel, soul and rap talent, contains a laugh-line reference to "bootyology," Knowles feels she is stepping forward with the film.


BAREFOOT IN A LONG BLACK DRESS


"The character just seemed like it was written for me. It was perfect," she said about her role as Lilly, a nightclub singer recruited to join the revitalization of a southern church choir in the fairly predictable, but spirited gospel comedy.


"It's very rare you can find a movie that has a message and has great music and is funny and not corny and you can take your parents to and still really enjoy," said Knowles, who was quick to laugh as she lounged barefoot in a long, black dress.


Knowles, whose first film role was as the cartoonish Foxxy Cleopatra in "Austin Powers in Goldmember," said she had great fun making music in the film with the likes of the O'Jays, Melba Moore, Shirley Caesar and Ann Nesby.


"By the end it felt like a real choir, it didn't feel like we were working," she said. "It didn't matter if it was one in the morning and we had been working all day. You could see we had fun. In the end, in between takes, we had jam sessions singing each other's songs."


Knowles said she fell in love with gospel music after her family switched from a Catholic to a Methodist church when she was 10 and she began singing in the choir.


She said she also related to Lilly's strong-mindedness.


"I grew up in the south so a lot of her qualities were in me. She was outspoken and I know people like that and I know how it feels to be judged. I grew up around single parents, single mothers. Strong women. I think it was nice to play that."

"In a lot of ways I'm a lot like her. She was not very glamorous, just natural. And even though I'm so over the top as Foxxy Cleopatra and on stage, in real life I'm a lot like Lilly."