Tina Knowles Details Richard Lawson Split and Solange Pregnancy in Book: Biggest Family Revelations

Tina Knowles’ new memoir, Matriarch, is about her life as a businesswoman, wife and mother, but she still shared plenty of details about her famous family members, including daughters Beyoncé and Solange.

The Texas native, 71, dedicated the book, which hit shelves Tuesday, April 22, to her daughters, whom she shares with ex-husband Mathew Knowles, as well as Kelly Rowland and her niece Angie Beyincé.

“To my daughters, who became my friends: Solange, Beyoncé, Kelly, Angie — you are my crew, my tribe, my ride-or-dies,” she wrote. “What would I do without you?”

Ahead of Matriarch’s release, Tina exclusively told Us Weekly that she was “still crying” about certain stories in the memoir while recording the audiobook version. “I’m like, ‘How many times am I going to read this and cry?’ I guess the answer is forever, because it’s my life. It’s my history,” she explained in March. “A big, big, big hope is that people will understand how important it is to look into your past, learn about your ancestors, and pass that history on to your children and your grandchildren. That’s what I’m hoping will happen from this book.”

Beyoncé, meanwhile, just hoped that her mom didn’t embarrass her with too many family secrets.

“Mama, I couldn’t be prouder. My love for you goes beyond what I can say. You put your heart into this book,” the Grammy winner, 43, wrote via Instagram in October 2024 after Tina announced the book. “I’m happy for you to share some of the stories that shaped you into who you are. To know you is to love you. But please don’t spill too much Mama Tea.”

Beyoncé hasn’t yet shared her thoughts on the book’s contents, but keep scrolling for some of the biggest revelations Tina shared about her family:

Her Unique Relationship With Kelly Rowland

Tina has long been open about the fact that she sees Rowland, 44, as one of her daughters even though they are not blood-related. As Tina explained in the book, they grew closer after Rowland moved in with the Knowles family for a summer when her own mom, Doris, was working as a live-in nanny for a white family who didn’t want Rowland to live with them.

After that summer, Rowland began referring to Mathew, now 73, as “Dad,” which Beyoncé didn’t initially understand. “I explained to her that Kelly seeing Mathew as a father figure didn’t take him away from Beyoncé, just as Kelly hadn’t made Solange and Beyoncé any less sisters,” Tina wrote. “It was an adjustment, and she accepted it, even growing to like sharing her dad. There is a long tradition of Black families expanding to include people as need and love have called for it, and that is just who we were.”

When Rowland turned 18, she and Tina had a conversation about how she could be a mom to her without replacing Doris. “We talked about how we both had always held space for Doris — who she called Mama — to be her mother, but I could be her mother too,” Tina recalled. “Kelly began to call me Ma, and I am continually astonished and grateful to God for giving us this gift of Kelly.”

Solange’s Pregnancy and Marriage

When Solange, now 38, got pregnant at 17, Tina admitted that she worried she was “too young” to be a mom and wife, but she wanted her to be happy. Still, she encouraged her youngest daughter to have the baby but wait to get married — and at one point, Tina even called Solange’s then-boyfriend, Daniel Smith, to try to get him to convince her that they should wait to tie the knot.

“He called us back, crying. ‘She said, F*** you, and f*** my mama, and f*** Angie because I know they put you up to this,’ ” Tina recalled Smith, now 41, saying. “Solange hung up in his face, and then disappeared for two days. We were scared to death, and even if a disappearing act was always Solange’s way, I was so mad.”

Solange didn’t relent, but her parents came around and were there for her 2004 wedding to Smith. The couple welcomed son Julez, now 20, that same year but divorced in 2007.

Jay-Z’s Defense of ‘Dangerously in Love’

In the book, Tina has nothing but positive things to say about Beyoncé’s husband, 55, starting with the time he defended his then-girlfriend when her label execs were trying to tell her that her debut solo album, Dangerously in Love, wasn’t good enough. He agreed to add a verse to the single “Crazy in Love” in order to help prove that the album had legs.

“This is a smash,” Tina recalled Jay saying of the album. “Every one of these records is a smash.” After he added his verse, the execs relented on “Crazy in Love” but still pushed Beyoncé to delay her album. She refused, and the album eventually went seven times platinum.

Her Ups and Downs With Mathew Knowles

Matriarch documents numerous difficulties in Tina’s marriage to Mathew, whom she wed in 1980. “We were so good half the time, a cosmic kind of love that made everything worth it, but then Mathew’s erratic behavior would take hold,” Tina wrote of the period after they welcomed Beyoncé in 1981. “I was caught in this dance with him, each doing the same steps over and over: He would cheat or act up, and I would say I’d had enough. He would beg for forgiveness, crying and promising to get better.”

Tina finally decided to divorce him in 2009, filing for divorce in November of that year after he welcomed a child with another woman. Three months later, however, they reconciled and began carrying on an “affair” that lasted for about a year. When Mathew had another affair with a different woman, however, Tina decided to call it quits for good. She filed for divorce a second time and they finalized their split in November 2011.

Rumors About Beyonce’s Pregnancy

As Beyoncé has previously revealed, she had multiple miscarriages before welcoming daughter Blue Ivy, now 13, in 2012 — and then faced rumors that she wasn’t really pregnant. In the book, Tina called that speculation “some of the stupidest s***” she’d ever seen, writing, “I wanted to curse some people out and scream at these losers to set the record straight. They had no idea what she and Jay, and our whole family, had been through. It was one of the worst times that Beyoncé would not allow me to speak publicly.”

Tina ultimately realized that Beyoncé was right about not addressing the rumors, but she was still upset by the situation. “As a mother, the constant rumors make me feel helpless, unable to protect my children,” she wrote. “I can work on anything else that comes about, but rumors? It feels out of my control.”

Remembering Uncle Johnny

The Beyhive became more familiar with Beyoncé’s “Uncle” Johnny after she referenced him on her 2022 album, Renaissance. He was actually Tina’s nephew, but in the book, she describes him as her “best friend.”

“Johnny lived life, which is different from just living,” she wrote of her family member, who died at age 48 in 1998 of complications from AIDS. “Every day, he found something funny or made it so, and you just couldn’t be around Johnny without laughing your head off.”

When Beyoncé paid tribute to him on Renaissance, Tina loved seeing tour attendees singing along with the line, “Uncle Johnny made my dress.”

“I wished Johnny were there to dance with me because we would have tore it up,” she wrote. “But I would always see people in the crowd who reminded me of Johnny — just his spirit — and I would do everything I could to get to them. … I collected pictures of so many Johnnys.”

Her 2nd Divorce

Following her split from Mathew, Tina moved on with actor Richard Lawson (father of actress Bianca Lawson). They tied the knot in 2015 but split in 2023. According to Tina, she one day “woke up with a clarity” that she needed to divorce Richard, 78.

“Though we were friends for many years before our 10-year relationship, and he has great qualities, we just didn’t bring them out in each other,” she recalled. “I just grew up at 69, and realized I deserved so much more. I wanted to be happy. I wanted someone to be happy when I walked in the room. If I stayed in this relationship, I would never feel whole, loved, cherished, and respected. And seen. Nothing else in a marriage matters if you are not first priority with each other.”

Tina went on to say that she made the decision “totally without malice” and has no regrets. “I not only survived, I thrived,” she explained. “I’d like a companion in life, even to get married again, but whether or not I was with somebody, I would still be good. I would lead a fulfilled life, because I’d come to truly value the woman in the mirror.”

Beyonce and Solange’s Support

In the last chapter of Matriarch, Tina revealed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2024 after putting off a mammogram for four years. She is now cancer-free after undergoing surgery the following month and noted her daughters were some of her biggest sources of support.

“Beyoncé made me move into her house so she could supervise my recuperation, exactly as my mother or I would have done,” Tina recalled, noting that her eldest daughter also found her doctor and sat in on phone calls regarding her mom’s care.

Matriarch is out now.