Matriarch: Oprah's Book Club
A Memoir
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • A revealing personal life story like no other—enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering—and a testament to the world-making power of Black motherhood
“A fascinating memoir of Tina Knowles’s journey to become the global figure she is today.”—Oprah Winfrey
“You are Celestine,” she said. She squatted to push the hair off my face and pull leaves off my pajama legs. “Like my sister and my grandmother.” And there, under the pecan tree, as she did countless times, that day my mother told me stories of the mothers and daughters that went before me.
Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as…
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…