Tina Knowles says after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis,”I struggled with whether I would share that journey”

Tina Knowles is sharing her story of battling breast cancer and encouraging other women to have regular mammograms.

Alongside the publication of her “intimate and revealing” biography, Matriarch, the mother of Beyoncé, 43, and Solange, 38, is sharing her personal story of battling breast cancer with the world. When physicians found stage 1 breast cancer in her left breast last July, the 71-year-old businesswoman was caught off guard. She was wrapping up Matriarch when the news broke, just after she and Beyoncé had launched their Cécred hair care line.

When discussing the diagnosis, she told People, “It’s important not to slack on your mammograms.” I’m pretty private, so I wasn’t sure if I would write about that voyage in the book. However, I believe there are many lessons for other women in it, therefore I choose to share it.

“And I think as women, sometimes we get so wrapped up and run around, but you have to go get your test,” she added. Because I fear to think of what may have happened to me if I hadn’t received my test early.

“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 canceled me and they said, we’ll call you when we start testing again,” Knowles added, revealing that she herself had skipped her scheduled mammogram. I simply believed that I had done it. Therefore, you cannot tinker with that.

Tina also discusses her daughters’ reactions to the news in Matriarch. 

“I could already feel her mind racing, focusing on this as a task to tackle with precision,” Beyoncé recalled, adding that she “took it well.” “Mom, we are going to take care of this,” she remarked of Solange.

“My girls became my team,” Knowles wrote, adding that her extra daughters, Kelly Rowland and her niece, Angie Beyince, were also by her side.
Tina had surgery to remove the malignancy and have her breasts reduced late last year. 

“I’m doing fantastic,” she said to People. “I’m cancer-free and feel so fortunate that God let me discover it early.”

The well-known father of Beyoncé and Solange, Tina Knowles’ ex-husband Mathew Knowles, also battled breast cancer, receiving a male breast cancer diagnosis in 2019. In the years since his diagnosis, he has recovered and turned into an advocate, specifically for genetic testing, after making the announcement to Michael Strahan on Good Morning America.

According to Tina, there is no history of breast cancer in her family, and she was not determined to have any genes for the disease.