Beyonce documentary earns record ratings for HBO

What happens when the normally private Beyonce finally opens up about Jay-Z, daughter Blue Ivy and her career? Fans make sure to tune in, bringing in record-breaking ratings.

Saturday night, Beyonce appeared on an episode of Oprah Winfrey’s Oprah’s Next Chapter and then HBO aired her documentary, Beyonce: Life Is but a Dream, and both brought in big numbers.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, her documentary brought in 1.8 million viewers when it first aired, the largest number for an HBO documentary in almost a decade.

For comparison, it beat out the highly-popular HBO series Girls by almost three times the number of viewers. The only other documentary that has been close in ratings is Spike Lee’s When the Levee’s Broke, which had an audience of 1.7 million.

Meanwhile, her interview with Winfrey brought in 1.3 million viewers.

Beyonce, who MTV reports also co-directed the documentary, is known to keep quiet when it comes to her private life, so the documentary was a chance for fans to finally get a peek at her life. She even proudly showed off her daughter, who she said “makes her world make sense.”