2 months ago
31
Tina Knowles was diagnosed with breast cancer last year.
The 71-year-old matriarch – who is the mother of Beyoncé and Solange Knowles – had missed a routine mammogram and was stunned when doctors discovered stage-one breast cancer in her left breast last July, shortly after she and the Texas Hold ‘Em’ hitmaker had launched their Cécred haircare line.
She told People magazine that she had missed getting her scheduled mammogram. “I forgot that I didn’t go to get my test two years before. I thought I had, because COVID came and they called me and cancelled me and they said, ‘We’ll call you when we start testing again.’ And I just thought I had done it. So you cannot play around with that.
“It’s important not to slack [off] on your mammograms.”
Knowles underwent surgery to remove the tumour and had a breast reduction at the same time, and she is now doing well.
She said: “I’m doing great. Cancer-free and incredibly blessed that God allowed me to find it early.
“I’m healthier, eating better, [and] I lost weight.”
Knowles said she hopes to serve as an inspiration to other women, as well as encouraging them to have regular breast screenings when invited.
She said: “I didn’t know that there was a stage 0. I could have caught this at stage 0 if I had not missed my mammogram.
“I want to show people you can go through that and still be fly. I want to give people hope. What scares me now is not making the best of every day that I have left in this life.”
Knowles has shared her story in her new memoir, Matriarch, which was announced on Tuesday as Oprah Winfrey’s latest book club pick, though she was hesitant about doing so.
She said: “I struggled with whether I would share that journey [in the book] because I’m very private. But I decided to share it because I think [there are] a lot of lessons in it for other women.
“And I think, as women, sometimes we get so busy and we get so wrapped up and running around, but you must go get your test. Because if I had not gotten my test early, I mean, I shudder to think what could have happened to me.”
In the book, Knowles detailed how her daughters took the news.
She wrote: “[Beyoncé] took it well, staying positive, and I could already feel her mind racing, focusing on this as a task to tackle with precision.
“[Solange said] ‘Mom, we are going to take care of this.’ “
With the pair, along with Kelly Rowland and her niece Angela Beyincé by her side, Knowles knew she was well supported.
She wrote: “My girls became my team.”
Knowles wasn’t found to have breast cancer genes, though her ex-husband, Beyoncé and Solange’s dad Mathew Knowles, has previously overcome stage-one breast cancer, too, and said he has the BRCA2 gene mutation, which increases the risk of the disease.
English (US) ·