Beyoncé and Solange’s mom, Tina Knowles, epitomizes what it means to be a supportive parent. While their dad, Mathew, managed Beyoncé’s legendary group Destiny’s Child in the ’90s and early aughts, Tina—who was named one of Glamour’s 2024 Women of the Year alongside a few other very famous mothers—was the heart behind the operation, at times making the girls’ outfits by hand. Tina’s mother was a seamstress, according to The New York Times, so she learned dressmaking quickly. It’s a skill that helped turn Beyoncé and Solange into fashion icons—and Tina herself into a mogul. (Long live House of Deréon, the beloved-by-millennials retail line started by Tina and Beyoncé in the 2000s.)
Of course, Tina would go on to helm her own solo line, Miss Tina by Tina Knowles, and become a respected philanthropist and activist. In 2017, she cofounded the WACO (Where Art Can Occur) Theater Center, “a performing and visual arts organization dedicated to the empowerment of Los Angeles artists, young people, and stories of the African diaspora.”
All the while, Tina Knowles remains dedicated to empowering her daughters every day—which they’ve thanked her for many times publicly. Read, below, just some of the beautiful things Beyoncé and Solange have said about their mom, Tina.
Solange says her mother is a “wonder.”
In an essay written by Solange to her younger self for Teen Vogue, she gave Tina her well-deserved flowers. “[Tina] is a wonder,” Solange wrote. “You watch her drop off three kids at three different schools in the morning, pick them up in the afternoon, shuffle each of them to their designated activities, and bring them all back to the salon she owns until she closes up with the utmost grace, love, and kindness. You realize watching a woman balance being a supportive mother, building a successful business from the ground up that was started in her garage, and giving back to the community will make you feel invincible and like the word ‘no’ is just an echo in the universe that you’ll never know.”
Beyoncé knows she couldn’t do it without her mom.
“I am thankful for every part of you and every second I share with you,” the “Formation” singer wrote on Instagram about Tina in 2020 for Mother’s Day. “Thank you for giving me life and thank you for expanding my consciousness. I would not have been able to do any of what I’ve done in my life without your strength, your wisdom, and your prayers.”
Beyoncé got emotional in an interview talking about Tina.
“I trust [my mom],” she told Access Hollywood. “I would do anything for her, and I admire her so much. Whenever there’s something going wrong, my mother is there, and she stays up all night to make sure everything’s perfect. I can always depend on her.” At this point in the chat, Bey said she was starting to “get emotional” and appeared to tear up before saying, “I’m very lucky to have her.”
Solange credits Tina for giving her the courage to use her voice.
Solange doesn’t shy away from addressing topics that matter in her music, like race and identity politics. We hear this perhaps most clearly on her 2016 album A Seat at the Table, which Pitchfork named the best album of that year. Tracks on it, like “Don’t Touch My Hair,” are poignant explorations of Blackness, which Tina gave Solange the strength to sing about. Per Time, Solange said Tina helped “nurture my voice to stand up, which gave me the confidence to now continue that and to write this record. It is one thing to experience these situations, but then it’s another to go home and tell your family and have them not support you. Having that support definitely had a positive impact on me.”
Beyoncé says Tina is “the bone in my spine.”
“You are my Queen, my heart, my strength, the bone in my spine,” Bey wrote to her mom on Instagram in 2021 for her birthday. “You are my inspiration. I hope you have everything in your life that your soul desires.”
Solange put an interlude called “Tina Taught Me” on A Seat at the Table.
The interlude is spoken by Tina herself, who, at one point, says, “I’ve always been proud to be Black. Never wanted to be nothing else.” When talking about “Tina Taught Me” to The New York Times, Solange said, “[Tina] says things in that interlude that I had been trying to say for the last four years. But my mother has a very special way of communicating, a very special channel that she speaks through that has always felt bigger than her.”
Solange knows her mom is the “blueprint.”
On Mother’s Day 2016, Solange wrote the sweetest tribute to her mom, dubbing her “the blueprint.” (Rightfully so!) “Strong, smart, free, independent, humble, generous, graceful, kind, hard working, creative, funny, and most importantly LOVING,” Solange wrote about Tina (per BuzzFeed). “[She] always showed us the power in having a vision. Grew up with not much at all, six sisters and brothers in a two-bedroom house. Didn’t have a degree, but ALWAYS the smartest, sharpest woman in the room.”
Solange added, “When I wanted to start petitions, or speak to the principal about issues, you were always right beside me. When I wanted to shoot a video in South Africa and didn’t have a budget, you were right there with me being the assistant, assistant, director and let me use alllll your miles for plane tickets. All of that only for me to grow up and hear stories and find out I was just being a little Tina.”
Beyoncé says Tina is her “hero.”
“My biggest hero is and always will be my mother,” she told Garage magazine in 2016, according to People. “She has taught me about caring for others, working hard and working smart. Everything I know about being a mother comes from the examples she has shown. My mother has instilled confidence in my sister and me and taught us to always be grateful.”
