Tina Knowles began recording her childhood memories in voice notes over a decade ago, motivated by personal reflections on mortality and legacy after her divorce and family losses. Now 71, her memoir, “Matriarch,” explores her life, from her Southern upbringing and motherhood to her battle with stage 1A breast cancer. Knowles recounts her creative contributions to her daughters Beyoncé and Solange’s careers, revealing the difficulties she faced in her marriage. The memoir deeply personalizes her experiences, addressing family struggles, identity, and the desire to reclaim her narrative, all while maintaining a protective instinct towards her famous daughters.
A little more than ten years ago, during tranquil periods while commuting between New York and Houston, Tina Knowles began to freestyle, capturing her memories and childhood tales in voice notes on her cellphone.
At 59, Knowles was still immersed in styling and raising her globally successful daughters, Beyoncé and Solange Knowles (she also considers Kelly Rowland and a niece, Angie Beyincé, as her own), and had just finalized her divorce after 31 years of marriage. She had faced multiple losses within her family.
“I started contemplating mortality, realizing I’m not going to be here forever,” she shared. “I felt old, and I felt sad.” She wanted to create a lasting legacy for her children and grandchildren.
As Knowles, now 71, sat this month in the expansive great room of her Hollywood Hills home, a sunlit area adorned with large-scale artwork, she recounted that deeply personal low point while occasionally gesturing with a hand embellished with several large gold rings, her nails expertly manicured in a vivid red that complemented her lipstick. Having changed into a tan Alo sweatsuit after a photo shoot — the right sleeve eventually slipping down, exposing her shoulder — she exuded a casual sultriness, an effortless glamour that stood in stark contrast to the darker time that sparked her project.
Her memoir, “Matriarch,” set to release on Tuesday, places Knowles’s life at the forefront. It encompasses the struggles of her upbringing in a segregated South and her personal growth journey as a working mother compelled to advocate for her children but not necessarily for herself, along with a blend of cautionary hope: Knowles unveils for the first time her stage 1A breast cancer diagnosis in 2024. (Post-surgery and treatment, she is now cancer-free and boldly wearing “sheer mesh” post-procedure. “That was my silver lining.”)
“My kids love and admire me, and all of that, but I believe they’ll gain a deeper insight into me and my motivations, including why I stayed in certain situations for so long,” she explained, her Galveston, Texas drawl elongating words like kiiiiiiiids and diiiiiiiid. “Once they dive into this book, they will understand a lot more.”
In various circles, Knowles acts as something of an internet matriarch, frequently recording “corny joke time” videos and sharing childhood anecdotes and tour experiences. Fans also eagerly await moments when she inadvertently reveals unapproved photos. When “Matriarch” was initially announced, Beyoncé expressed her support in a social media post, albeit with a disclaimer: “I’m pleased you’re sharing some of the stories that formed you into who you are,” she said. “To know you is to love you. But please, don’t spill too much Mama Tea.”
The Knowles family is notoriously private, with its starry members, including son-in-law Jay-Z, each delving into personal struggles and victories in their own carefully crafted art — but seldom elsewhere. Although Knowles had been documenting her voice notes, she was initially hesitant when approached to write a memoir: “They’re going to want to know about my kids; they won’t care about me. That’s what I kept telling myself — nobody wants to hear my story.”
Eventually, she relented, believing she could compile the lighthearted behind-the-scenes moments that had resonated with her audience on social media. Many of these anecdotes are sprinkled throughout “Matriarch.” As the hairstylist for Destiny’s Child’s inaugural video, “No, No, No (Part 2),” Knowles discovered she hadn’t brought enough hair extensions, prompting her to cut blonde streaks from her own hair to ensure Beyoncé looked camera-ready. The promotional artwork for Solange’s debut album, partially funded by her college savings, featured Knowles and Stephanie Gayle, then Columbia Records’ vice president of marketing, rushing to Central Park to use a horse and carriage as a free prop.
These memories frequently serve a deeper purpose: they chronicle the uphill struggle the entire family faced in their pursuit of musical careers. After signing with Columbia, label executives derided Destiny’s Child’s grassroots styling. “No one understood it,” Gayle stated in an interview. “Tina did the hair. Tina provided the outfits. Every video shoot, it was just complaints because they just didn’t grasp it.”
Some of Destiny’s Child’s most iconic visuals — consider the tattered camouflage from the “Survivor” video — emerged from Knowles’s quick ingenuity and the label’s thin budgets. Despite the group producing numerous No. 1 hits and becoming one of history’s best-selling girl groups, style budgets tightened under the assumption that Knowles would stay up late embellishing with rhinestones or draping fabric. “That’s Tina,” Gayle remarked. If an issue arose on tour, “she’ll pray about it and find a solution.”
However, rather than mere backstage anecdotes, “Matriarch” delves into the core reason Knowles channeled all her creative energy into her daughters’ careers, neglecting her own aspirations. It also addresses why she remained in a marriage that she describes as fraught with infidelity from the outset. This book marks the first time she has publicly acknowledged that tension. (Mathew Knowles opted not to comment, but referred to their partnership as “a great team!” in business and confirmed that he previewed the passages involving him before publication.)
As the youngest of Agnes Buyince’s seven children, Celestine Beyoncé earned the nickname “Badass Teenie B” from her older siblings, due to her fiery spirit and sharp tongue. (Each new child’s name was recorded on their birth certificate, with a variety of spellings for the surname like Beyince, Buyince, and Beyoncé. Knowles’s mother was told, “Be happy you’re receiving a birth certificate,” as many Black individuals in Galveston, Texas, did not always get one.)
Agnes, Knowles writes, shared what little was known of their family history: both her great-grandmother and grandmother fought to prevent their children from being sold away or separated during slavery. The methods remain a mystery. Knowles writes that matriarchs “are imbued with the most enduring and tenacious love.”
Agnes was a seamstress who traded garments for her children’s enrollment in a Catholic elementary school, where the nuns singled her out for punishment (sometimes corporal) because she didn’t fit into the mold of the town’s Black professional families. When Knowles would return home distressed after being insulted or struck, her mother would take her back to class to apologize.
“That experience has left a lasting impression on me and, I’m sure, my self-esteem,” she reflected in a candid stream of consciousness. “On one hand, I was this persistent fighter, but on the other, I believe it influenced my relationships and made me feel unworthy in some ways. I carry those scars with me for life.”
Knowles discovered that her talent for enhancing beauty could serve as a means of survival and progress. By launching a thriving Houston hair salon for Black professionals, Knowles ensured that her stylists wore heels and provided them with newspaper articles to engage in conversations with clients. “That way, even if they weren’t familiar with the lawyer or doctor present, they could discuss current events,” said Vernell Keys, a long-time friend of Knowles. “Many of them eventually started their own businesses.”
John Edward Rittenhouse II, the Uncle Johnny who inspired Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” (“Uncle Johnny made my dress / that cheap spandex, she looks a mess,” she sings on “Heated”), learned sewing because the elder women in the family knew that men couldn’t intimidate the tailor needed for patchwork leather coats and bell bottoms. Knowles fondly recalls taking him to his first gay bar and writes warmly of her nephew and best friend, who was safeguarded by his family in ways that many openly gay Black men have not been.
“To discuss him and portray him as a real person rather than just a tailor or an influence on my kids’ house music passion was truly special,” she expressed.
By intertwining his story with her own in a public manner, Knowles endeavors to undertake a profoundly challenging task for someone so closely linked to vast fame: reclaiming her life narrative beyond mere fan service. When she began exploring internet genealogy sites as part of her research, Knowles expressed uncertainty about the authenticity of the information, worried that fans may have populated it. A search for her paternal great-grandmother’s maiden name revealed a line of women all named Solange as a middle name, leading Knowles to question its legitimacy.
She enlisted a researcher to help and, within moments, he confirmed that the information was accurate. “I texted my girls, and Solange replied, ‘Mama, what kind of voodoo Creole mess is this?’”
Knowles’s well-known daughters do not appear until Chapter 15, and her fierce protectiveness over them influences what is included — and excluded — from the narrative. When I mention that this memoir’s themes of maternal lineage and infidelity reminded me of Beyoncé’s “Lemonade,” which tackles similar subjects, Knowles firmly responded, smiling, “I’m not going to discuss that.”
Despite the public’s relentless thirst for insights about her children, “Matriarch” remains unequivocally Tina Knowles’s narrative. “I still carry some fear about publishing,” she admitted, noting that she shared with her children and exes the sections that mention them. “And I’ve come to terms with the fact that this is my story.”
And it is as rich — and discreet — as she is.