Tina Knowles Lawson For Ebony Magazine July 2015

“There is a peculiar artist’s way that orders the steps of the intriguing and impressively hush-hush 61-year-old whom industry folk, gay kids and the massive “BeyHive” affectionately know as Miss Tina. Yes, she is the North Star to her megafamous daughters Beyoncé and Solange—and bonus babies Kelly Rowland and niece Angie Beyince—alike. No, she is not a momager. It appears she’s got zero reality show celeb mom hat tricks, and she has, at least once, lost it on the paparazzi. Somewhat against stereotype, what the onetime divorcée and newly married Celestine “Tina” Knowles Lawson seems to be is simply the archetype of an independent woman.

Her speech, still Texas twangy when it wants to be, is peppered with youthful colloquialisms and the more-than-occasional curse word. After 31 years of marriage and reports of her first husband’s infidelity, she privately divorced former Destiny’s Child manager Mathew Knowles in 2011. (After which, she says son-in-law Jay Z initially wanted her to date younger men.) Now emotionally resurrected, thanks in large part to the unwavering support of her girls, she is whole. Proof? Fabulous images from her wedding to the stately veteran television and film actor Richard Lawson stormed the Internet in the spring. By all measures, she is dangerously in love.
But Knowles Lawson also matter-of-factly shares that she is not—and has never been—a kept woman. She’s on no one’s payroll, thank you, and she wants it that way. Beyoncé certainly doesn’t pay her, at least not in cash. The breathtakingly gorgeous grandmother does Pilates five days a week and has a ravishing body (not for her age, but period; see exclusive EBONY photographs); is in talks for a TV show about “getting your groove back;” does a daily morning prayer; works with charities to support the homeless; and is a self-taught, avid Black art collector and historian (who owns originals from greats such as Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett and John Biggers). But this is all her new life. In her old one, crafted out of poverty, she made sandwiches and dresses to sell to classmates, rode motorcycles without a helmet, became a professional makeup artist at 19, and always did—as in did everyone’s hair. Sure, she’s what magazines call “sexy at any age” because of that tight waist, but arguably, it’s as much due to her natural-born artisan and rebel soul.”
Snapshot: Tina Knowles Lawson For Ebony Magazine July 2015
Source: Ebony.com