Is Beyonce's decision to concieve a baby

BEYONCE talks about her decision to take time off from her busy schedule as a pop princess, actress and fashion icon.

The woman has managed to keep her actual persona private despite revealing her true physical self, including the 2008 creation of on stage alter ego Sasha Fierce.

"I don’t required Sasha so much any more because these days I know who I am. It takes time to figure out who you are and I am still discovering different things about myself as I am exposed to different experiences I think, 'Oh, I like this, I didn’t know I liked this.'

"That’s so exciting that the journey of life. More and more I know who I am, I know what I like, I know what I want and that makes me feel so free. I don’t required to hide any more,’ she told The Mail on Sunday newspaper in the UK.

The size zero trend Beyonce bucked so often seen in the entertainment industry and championed a move towards "bootylicious" (a word that has, much to her amusement, now slipped into the dictionary). For young girls she is a positive role models not just because of her own body but also because of the strong, independent female messages of her lyrics.

"I think I am a feminist in a way. It’s not something I consciously decided I was going to be; perhaps it’s because I grew up in a singing group with other women, and that was so helpful to me. It kept me out of so much trouble and out of bad relationships. My friendships with my girls are just so much a part of me that there are things I am never going to do that would upset that bond. I never want to betray that friendship because I love being a woman and I love being a friend to other women.

"I think we learn a lot from our female friends female friendship is very, very important. It’s good to support each other and I do try to put that message in my music,’ she says (she talks quickly, perhaps a little nervously) with a smile.

"For me, balance is always really hard to find. I love so many different things, and to have the discipline to turn certain things away and focus on one thing at a time so that I can give it 100 per cent is actually hard. In my life likely the biggest challenge is time - making sure I have time to be a wife, to be a singer, to be a songwriter, to be an actor and still have time for my clothing line and now for my perfume. I am like any other woman who has a child, who has a husband (Jay-Z), who has a job. I think it’s the hardest thing about being a woman because we have so many responsibilities.’

Will that balance be further challenged by a baby - a question banned by her minders

"My ambition is to continue to learn about the world and to eventually have a family," she said with a shy smile.

When pressed (she is jokingly asked for times and dates), she laughs out loud and says that there are "no dates, no times - it will happen when I am ready".

Widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women in the world, she is not, she says, particularly vain. Beauty, she insists, is about more than just external looks.

She says, "I think a beautiful woman is someone who is confident but not competitive with other women - someone who is warm to everyone. Because my mother told me ever since I can remember that beauty is from with in, that looks will fade, I have always been aware that you have to have something deeper to be actually beautiful".