Tina Knowles opened up about her tumultuous relationship with ex-husband Mathew Knowles, revealing that the duo briefly considered reconciling after she filed for divorce.
In her new memoir, Matriarch, Tina, 71, recalled filing for divorce in November 2009 after Mathew, 73, fathered a child with another woman. “This was different from the other times I had chosen to leave him,” she wrote in the book, which hit shelves Tuesday, April 22. “Now I had no choice. In the aftermath of that explosion, I kept pace with my life, as I had now for years, sticking to my routine and allowing work to numb and carry me.”
Several months later, however, “someone improbably steady presented himself for me to hold on to in my disorientation,” Tina wrote. That man, she explained, was Mathew. The duo didn’t speak for three months after she filed, but when he visited her in New York City in early 2010, she had a change of heart.
“He’d changed after new counseling,” she recalled. “I didn’t believe him, but he was persistent, proved he’d gotten help, and as he courted me, I found myself falling in love again. The magnetic pull between us, this cosmic cord I had tried to cut so many times, was stronger than ever.”
Despite their reconnection, Tina said they both knew their “bond seemed stronger because we were sneakin’” around. They didn’t tell their daughters, Beyoncé and Solange, about their secret meetups in Texas, because they “knew the kids would be so mad at us if they found out we were together again.”
In May 2010, however, the estranged couple had a near-miss when Beyoncé, now 43, and Solange, now 38, surprised their mom in Galveston for Mother’s Day. Mathew was with Tina at the time and quickly rushed out of the house before their daughters arrived, but Tina decided to come clean anyway.
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Tina recalled that Beyoncé “nodded solemnly” at the news, but Solange “exploded,” questioning her mom’s decision to reunite with the man who’d cheated on her.
“Beyoncé was more understanding than Solange, who I know was just being protective of me,” she wrote. “They each loved their dad in different ways, and I sometimes felt my youngest was so much like her dad that she felt his moments of failing on a soul-deep level.”
When the divorce came up in court, Tina and Mathew, who tied the knot in 1980, skipped the hearing. They ultimately were back together for a year before splitting again. Around that time, Beyoncé split from her dad as her manager, which Tina said inspired her to take a “leap” toward independence.
“I clearly knew my relationship with Mathew was unhealthy, and it was the fear of going it alone that kept me stuck,” she recalled. “I had been avoiding Mathew lately, afraid to cut the cord, and he had retaliated by seeing another woman.”
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Following that affair, Tina filed for divorce a second time, and this time it stuck. They finalized their split in November 2011.
Tina later moved on with actor Richard Lawson, whom she married in 2015. She filed for divorce in 2023, and they finalized their split last year. Mathew, meanwhile, has been married to former model Gena Avery since 2013.
Matriarch is out now.
