April 23, 2025

Welcome to another Wednesday, Out readers!

This week, we've got an exclusive interview with the iconic Miss Tina Knowles, who is releasing a new memoir, Matriarch.

In our interview, Beyoncé's mother opens up about her relationship with the singer's late Uncle Johnny, the gay man who designed outfits for the singer early in her career, and whom Beyoncé dedicated her 2022 album Renaissance to.

"Me and Johnny were the rebellious two who never wanted to go with the crowd," Tina Knowles said. "We went against everything. He protected me always, and I protected him, it was a mutual thing. We felt like it was us against the world. We would get in our own little world where we'd be designing clothes and making stuff or doing drag shows and nobody understood us."

Knowles also revealed that she has enough stories about Johnny to fill another book – and she just might do exactly that.

"I might just have a Johnny book. You don't understand how much it means to me, every time I get on one of these interviews and somebody asks me about him and they really want to know about him and how many young men have told me that they didn't experience that kind of love," Knowles says. "To us, it was an acceptance. Now that I'm older and I'm looking at it, those were not the norm. We were kind of abnormal when it came to family. But when they tell me, you know, I didn't have that but it still makes me feel good to know that somebody had that, you know, that they had that unconditional love and protection."