In her 2013 song Ring Off, Beyoncé refers to her mother’s resilience and strength coming off the back of the divorce of her parents: Always know that you’ve got a daughter. That’s so, so proud you took the high road.
Now the mother of one of the most successful artistes of all time shares a compelling story of her own life and being a major player behind the scenes of both her daughters’ success in an eagerly anticipated book that was released on April 22.
Tina Knowles Matriarch: A Memoir provides an interesting peek into an extraordinary family as told by the businesswoman, fashion designer and art collector who is affectionately known as Mama Tina by her daughters’ fans.
The inspiration for the book came from a quote which Beyoncé shared with her mother during a conversation: “the best thing you can do for your children is to prepare them for when you are not going to be here anymore”.
The 71-year-old mother of Beyonce and Solange Knowles reveals her own turbulent life and how her experiences influenced the upbringing of her own children. Born Celestine Ann Beyoncé, she was raised in segregated Galveston, Texas in a two-bedroom house, the youngest of seven children.
The turning point in Knowles’s life came as a five-year-old girl, when a nun at her Catholic school bluntly told her “You don’t belong here”.
Such adversity at a young age, she says, turned her into a fighter and imbued in her the spirit to pursue her dreams regardless of societal hurdles. She writes about the trauma of being subjected to an invasive gynecological examination as a teenager, an episode that she only came to terms with in later years, during therapy.
When her daughter was born, she called her Beyoncé to preserve her own maiden name, much to her own father’s consternation. “My dad was like, “girl, that baby is gonna be mad at you”,” she recalled during an episode of the Oprah Book Club. Solange’s name was picked from a French baby name book that she bought for a friend in Paris.
The differences in the temperaments of the two sisters were apparent from a young age. When Beyoncé was a baby, she would only be soothed to sleep by jazz music, while her sister Solange would drift off while being read a story; while Solange liked the structure, Beyoncé enjoyed the family’s freedom and spontaneity.
When she noticed that the bond between the sisters was loosening, Knowles defied the stigma associated with mental health at the time and enrolled her young daughters for therapy.
As a stylist, designer and mother, Knowles helped guide her daughter’s first group, Destiny’s Child to become a global pop phenomenon. “I put a picture in my NIV study Bible, and one day I opened it, and found the word ‘Destiny.’ And I was like, that’s the name. And my ex-husband added ‘child’ to it because there was already a group by that name (Destiny),” she writes.
As the group’s costume designer, Knowles had to endure a lot of flak from the record company and other people around the group because she was not formally trained and was criticised for making the girls look like a reincarnation of the 1960s Motown group, The Supremes.
“I got to mother you all in some way and you believed in me early on to dress you and give love and creative input,” she said while accepting the Mother of the Year award at the Billboard Women In Music Awards in March 2025.
The House of Deréon clothing line developed by Knowles and Beyoncé was launched in 2005 but closed shop seven years later, and in 2024 they unveiled Cécred, a hair-care line. Mother and daughter also collaborate on philanthropic projects through Beyoncé’s BeyGOOD Foundation.
“The proudest moment for me is when my children do something that is not about entertainment; when they respect people and do charity,” Knowles told the Oprah Book Club podcast.
For the first time, Tina Knowles also reveals her battle with breast cancer which was diagnosed last July when she was in the process of writing the book.
“Beyoncé took it positively and I could already feel her mind racing, focusing on this as a task to tackle with precision,” she writes. She underwent surgery late last year and is now in remission.
The book's cover art was designed by Nigerian painter Kelani Fatai. The author first commissioned him in 2023 after his work became popular via social media. Prior to the cover painting, Knowles had commissioned him to make other art pieces for her.
Tina Knowles Matriarch: A Memoir is this week’s pick for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club. In addition to an upcoming book tour, she is also assisting Beyoncé with plans for the Cowboy Carter tour to promote the multiple Grammy award-winning album.
