Mathew Knowles gives his reaction to the Solange/Jay-Z elevator incident
The father of the two superstar singers relates what happened when he saw the video of the tussle between his daughter and son-in-law
Four years ago, the World Wide Web lost its mind when Solange was seen attacking Jay-Z in leaked footage from a hotel elevator.
Since then, we’ve gotten bits and pieces of the story — if you can put two and two together — which included hints on Beyonce’s “Flawless” remix, as well as the entirety of Lemonade and Jay’s outright reference to it on the title track of the multi-faceted 4:44 album.
Mathew Knowles, who has spoken out about the incident in bits ever since, recently went on The Wendy Williams Show and dished about the infamous incident.
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“I have to tell you, I laughed so hard,” said Mathew. “Because if you know Solange, that’s Solange. A firecracker! Don’t know where she get that from,” he joked.
“And Beyonce would be in the corner quiet, just kind of like, ‘When y’all finish, just let me know,’” he said. “So I just laughed.”
Wendy also prompted Knowles to talk about that wonderful time — for us, not for him — when he mistakenly confirmed that Beyonce had given birth to the twins last year.
“I’ll never forget this,” said Knowles. “I was on my way to the airport, and I think it was one of those Saturday ‘good morning’ shows. And I thought the scroll said, ‘Beyonce has announced,’ so when I got to the airport I just wanted to congratulate her because I thought she had told the world.”
“Because I knew and a lot of people knew close to the family. It was a mistake I made and I can own that,” he confessed.
Knowles had famously took to his Instagram with a post stating, “They’re here!” about the boy and girl newcomers.
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Sipping the tea
Earlier this year, Knowles, 66, said during an interview with Good Morning Britain that the speculated issues between Jay-Z and Beyonce had caused him much worry.
“It’s always hard for a parent to let go. I felt the same way when I was growing up, I didn’t want to be under my parents’ nest so I understand that,” he said. “I hope, and I feel very calm and comfortable about this, that they’ve been given the tools to be successful. Are they going to make mistakes? Absolutely. But mistakes are a reason to grow. I’m more concerned about the racism and colorism.”
For both interviews, Knowles’ primary goal was to promote his new book, Racism: From the Eyes of a Child, and doubled down on his recent comments about his daughters’ success being due, in part, to their light complexions.
“I’ve been in the music industry for 25 years. When I made that statement, I was speaking specifically as our radio is in America. We have urban radio and we have pop radio. When we look at pop radio we can look, I don’t use Beyoncé or Solange my younger daughter, I really talk about Mariah Carey and others, Rihanna, that it’s just a known fact, if we look over the last ten years, and we look at colorism – which is discrimination based on the shade of color – it’s a fact,” he said.
“It’s a fact that Beyoncé or any of the other artists, Alicia Keys, I can go on and on, a shade of color does make a difference in pop radio.”
