INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A glorious chronicle of a life like none other—enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering—and a testament to the world-changing power of Black motherhood “A beautiful and brave story of strong women, fierce mothering, and the power of continued evolution.”—Michelle Obama “A fascinating memoir of Tina Knowles’s journey to become the global figure she is today.”—Oprah Winfrey “Told in rich color with flourishes so detailed . . . they conjure a fully realized world the reader can inhabit.”— The Washington Post Here is a page-turning chronicle of family love and heartbreak, loss and perseverance, and the kind of creativity, audacity, and will it takes for a girl from Galveston to change the world. Matriarch is one brilliant woman’s intimate and revealing story, and a multigenerational family saga that carries within it the story of America—and the wisdom that women pass on to each other, mothers to daughters, across generations. “A fascinating memoir of Tina Knowles’s journey to become the global figure she is today. We learn how the strength and wisdom of the women who came before her fueled Tina’s passion to achieve and gave her the ability to nurture her own daughters into the incredible women they are today.” —Oprah Winfrey “Both her great-grandmother and grandmother fought to keep their children from being sold away or otherwise separated in slavery. How remains a mystery. Matriarchs, Knowles writes, ‘are filled with the most enduring and ferocious love.’” — The New York Times “As a fan of the Knowles family music empire, I was not expecting to uncover information I did not already know, but [Tina] Knowles proved wrong. She delves deeper into her own backstory than ever before.” —The Washington Post “A great story of a singular American life.” —Kirkus Reviews Tina Knowles is an American businesswoman, fashion designer, art collector, and activist. Born Celestine Ann Beyoncé in Galveston, Texas, to a longshoreman father and seamstress mother, she learned dressmaking at an early age. In 1986, she opened Headliners, a groundbreaking hair salon that became a multimillion-dollar phenomenon in Houston. As a stylist, designer, and mother, she helped guide the day-to-day path of Destiny’s Child—the music group comprised of Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams—to global commercial success. With her daughter Beyoncé she cofounded and ran the House of Deréon, a clothing line named for her mother, later adding the Miss Tina line, which revolutionized size inclusivity. In 2024, she helped to create Cécred, Beyoncé’s hair-care line. Her philanthropic portfolio includes the nonprofit performing arts organization WACO Theater Center; The Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth in Houston; and Tina’s Angels, her thriving mentoring program for at-risk youth in South Central Los Angeles. She serves as chairwoman of BeyGOOD, a nonprofit dedicated to establishing economic equity through a wide array of initiatives. Tina Knowles is a grandmother of six and a Matriarch to many. Chapter 1 Badass Tenie B June 1959 I was three steps out the door by the time my mama realized I’d pulled my disappearing act again. She’d turned her head in the kitchen, and I was running out the house to my sister Selena’s. “You need to let me comb your hair,” my mother called from the door. “And brush your teeth!” “Okay, Mama,” I said, aiming to fall between pleasing and pleading as I kept my pace. I could not stop. A perfect summer day—­like this one at age five—­could last you forever if you started it early enough. “Or else I’m not gonna let you go over there, Tenie,” she said, her voice farther from me now. She would not get louder than that, I knew. She had what people on the island called a “sweet demeaneh” and I could outrun the sound of her disapproval even if it followed me on the breeze off the water behind me. In Galveston, the wind off the Gulf is a constant reminder that you are on an island. The city is a skinny strip of beach town two miles off the coast of Texas. Now the wind was at my back, and the gray pavement of the lane was already warmed by the morning Texas sun. I was barefoot, which was the only way to live in June. Wearing shoes just meant keeping track of them when you took them off at Galveston Beach or climbed a tree. And Selena’s house wasn’t more than a slim eighth of a block around the corner. Otherwise, my overprotective, fearful mother would never have let me go on my own. When you’re little, you don’t know how small your world is. Mine was contained in my neighborhood, and the four points of my compass were set: There was the east and west daily back and forth between my house and Selena’s. Then Holy Rosary Catholic Church to the north, so close we could see into my siblings’ Catholic school directly from our front door. And just a few blocks south was the small strip of segregated beach that we were allowed onto. They took thirty