Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles is opening up about a trauma that has hung over her family for decades.
The 71-year-old businesswoman (born Celestine Ann ‘Tina’ Beyoncé) delves into her childhood growing up in Texas in her new memoir Matriarch.
A significant event that still affects her is the encounter her brother Lumis ‘Skip’ Joseph had with the police, an incident that, as per People, ‘changed my family forever.’
Reflecting on her own battle with breast cancer, Tina recalled how Skip was arrested in 1967 when he was on his way home after a date.
Affectionately called Skip due to his habit of skipping during his childhood, her brother had taken a taxi that night. However, instead of being dropped off at his house, the driver left him at the wrong location.
The house was apparently nearby, as the owner knew Skip, but they didn’t immediately recognize him and called police about a strange man standing on their doorstep.
Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles is opening up about a trauma that has hung over her family for decades. The 71-year-old businesswoman (born Celestine Ann ‘Tina’ Beyoncé) delves into her childhood growing up in Texas in her new memoir Matriarch; seen December 9 in Hollywood
One incident that looms over her was her brother Lumis ‘Skip’ Joseph Beyoncé’s brutal encounter with police that ‘changed my family forever,’ according to People; seen March 29 in LA
She later realized her error and called Tina’s family to get them to come pick up Skip, but police officers arrived before they did and proceeded to arrest him delay.
According to Tina, the neighbor protested to police that Skip was ‘he’s a good boy,’ but the police were unmoved.
By then, her family had also arrived on the scene, but there was nothing they could do to stop officers from taking Skip away.
‘”Please don’t let them kill my son,”‘ Tina recalled her mother — who was well aware of the danger a black man arrested in the South face — pleaded.
‘She said it over and over, a sobbing prayer,’ the Knowles family matriarch added, noting that her mother tried to make an impression on the lone Black officer who was part of the arresting party.
Any relief the family might have felt when they got a call the next day to come pick up Skip at the station was brutallly shattered when they arrived and saw he was drenched in blood after being brutally beaten by police.
‘They could have killed him… we thought he was dead,’ Tina confessed.
She added that the horrifying incident had a lasting impact on her parents, who were filled with ‘constant fear and anxiety’ because of the state violence unleashed on Skip.
After going on a date one night in 1967, Tina’s brother was dropped off at the wrong house. The neighbor called police who quickly arrived to arrest him
The neighbor, recognizing Skip, protested that he was a ‘good boy,’ and Tina’s family arrived to beg for his life, but police arrested him anyway; seen with Solange (L) and Beyonce (center) in 2006
When her family picked him up at the police station the next day, Skip was covered in blood after being brutally beaten. She said police then harassed the family for years, and the same officer that beat him even arrested her later; seen with ex Richard Lawson in 2023
According to Tina, one of the police officers who had arrested her brother — and may have been involved in his beating — later arrested her too, though it’s unclear what the charge was.
She writes in her memoir that after Skip’s bloody ordeal, she and her family were ‘harassed by the police for years.’
The experience of constant, seemingly unwarranted surveillance forced them to be ‘on guard all the time,’ and the experience was particularly hard on her mother.
Despite the fear that the same violence enacted on Skip could befall her or her family members, Tina later worked up the courage to join civil rights demonstrations
She credits her family from keeping her from feeling eternally bitter about the injustice they dealt with.
‘My parents weren’t the parents that said, oh, you could be anything you want to be. I never heard that,’ she continued. ‘I heard get you a good government job and, you know, settle for less, basically.
‘But on the other side of it, was that your family is everything. As long as you’ve got your family, as long as you’ve got God first, life is amazing,’ Tina added.
Earlier this week, the mother of Solange Knowles confessed that she had recently been diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer after a routine mammogram.
Earlier this week, the mother of Solange Knowles confessed that she had recently been diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer after a routine mammogram
‘I was nervous,’ she admitted to Gayle King on CBS Mornings. She said her famous daughters were ‘joking’ with her to keep her spirits up amid multiple surgeries and appointments
The fashion designer, who shares her famous daughters with her ex-husband Mathew Knowles, 72, said that Beyoncé and Solange had been supporting her through multiple hospital visits and surgeries.
‘I was nervous,’ she admitted to Gayle King on CBS Mornings. ‘And so they started just joking with me.’
One way Solange lightened the mood was by showing her a viral video about the word ‘demure.’
‘I start laughing. I get out of my head… Then I said, “I’m just so happy that y’all are here”,’ she recalled.
