Tina Knowles opens up about ‘excruciating pain’ she weathered in harrowing health scare

Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles may seem like the strong and powerful matriarch of her family, yet even she has had her fair share of harrowing health scares.

Tina recently released her memoir Matriarch in April, and opened up about a terrifying accident in July 2004 that put her in hospital for weeks while she recovered.

An excruciating accident

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The mother of two recounted the moment in her book, sharing that she was frying fish in a skillet while her then-husband, Mathew Knowles, and stylist Ty Hunter were in another room.

Tina was on the phone with her youngest daughter Solange, who had called to ask how to cook chicken with a “cooking bag”. 

She forgot a key step in the process, causing Solange to drop the meal altogether and Tina to burst into a fit of laughter.

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After she hung up the phone, Tina accidentally hit the handle of the skillet and sent it flying all over her. The hot oil streamed onto her stomach and pelvis, which she described as “boiling lava”. 

“The oil melted through the stretch of the jeans, then my skin, continuing down through my skin to the muscle,” she wrote. 

The 71-year-old added that she was “trapped in the excruciating pain” while she waited to be found in the kitchen by her husband. 

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Once at the hospital, she had to undergo a debridement process to clean the wounds, which she likened to “the torture chamber”. She explained that the debridement involved “showers of high-powered hoses held on the burnt skin to get the top layer off.” 

Thankfully, Tina made a full recovery, but not before she insisted on flying to Solange’s baby shower in Houston against the doctor’s advice. 

She flew back to New York to have surgery on her leg the next day, and the doctor successfully did a skin graft. 

A pillar of support

© Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspap

Tina is no stranger to weathering health scares, particularly in recent years after she was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer. 

The former hairdresser announced the news on CBS Mornings in July 2024, sharing that doctors had found two tumors during a routine mammogram. She underwent a lumpectomy to remove the tumors, and moved into Beyoncé’s home during her recovery. 

“It was really hard, really challenging,” Tina told The Guardian of her cancer struggle. “Something that I thought was going to be easy turned into something pretty traumatic.”

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“But I am doing so good now, and I am just so grateful and blessed that I am healthy,” she assured. “It could have been way worse.” She added that her family were an incredible support on her road to recovery and stayed by her side the entire time. 

“Absolutely my faith, and my kids [got me through]. My kids were…I can’t even explain how supportive they were,” she told the publication. “This was a seven-day-a-week thing, and I felt, with them by my side, I could get through anything – and I did.”

Tina welcomed Beyoncé and Solange with her ex-husband, Mathew; the pair split in 2011 after over 30 years together. She is a proud grandmother to Solange’s son Julez, as well as Beyoncé’s children Blue Ivy, Rumi and Sir, whom the “Halo” singer shares with her husband Jay-Z. 

To learn more about Tina’s cancer battle, watch below…