Sasha allows me to strut my stuff

The world may see her as a ' bootylicious' diva but Beyoncè Knowles insists she is just a shy, God-fearing country girl.

In fact, the former Destiny's Child singer has insisted that her strutting on-stage performances are not really her but an alter ego called Sasha.

She told Vanity Fair magazine that thinking of herself as another person was a good way of boosting her confidence on stage. She said: 'At a party I'm not going to go out on the dancefloor. People expect me to go do that but that's for the stage.

What's more important to me is the way I treat people, what I think, what I give to people.

'When I go back to Houston and go to church and see those people, I feel like the same country girl.'

She was also keen to correct some 'crazy gossip'.

She dismissed reports that she and her rapper boyfriend Jay- Z were engaged or that she wished to fire her father as managerafter one argument too many. She said of Matthew Knowles: 'People think he controls everything but I actually control everything.'