Beyoncé Has More Siblings Than You Realize
Beyoncé is one of the world’s most recognizable faces. She’s a singer, actress, dancer, and businesswoman with a career spanning more than two decades. Yet, she’s one of the most reserved stars in celebrity history.
Beyoncé has always kept her personal life out of the spotlight. She likes the focus to stay on her career and keeps her comments on herself and her family to a minimum. So, you wouldn’t be wrong for not knowing how many siblings she actually has.
The truth is, Beyoncé has not one, but three siblings. Find out more about them below.
Solange Knowles
Solange is Beyoncé’s baby sister and her most recognized sibling. She was also born in Houston, Texas to Mathew and Tina Knowles.
“We grew up in the same neighborhood that produced Scarface, Debbie Allen, and Phylicia Rashad,” Solange told Interview Magazine in 2017.
In her early teenage years, Solange wrote songs for Beyoncé’s group Destiny’s Child before embarking on a solo career. She released her debut album, Solo Star, in 2002 when she was just 16 but took a break from the industry after becoming pregnant with her son, Julez. In 2004, she married Julez’s dad, Daniel Smith, and the two settled in Idaho. But the marriage did last and the couple divorced in 2007.
“Every time there was drama and I was all the way in Idaho, it was nice to be able to call [Beyoncé],” Solange recalled to New York Magazine in 2012.
In the mid-2000s, Solange emerged and started making music again. She released two successful projects — Sol-Angel & the Hadley St. Dreams (2008) and True (2010) — before striking gold with the Grammy-winning album, A Seat at the Table (2016). Solange told Beyoncé in a 2017 story for Interview Magazine that the album “really feels like storytelling for us all and our family and our lineage.”
Nixon Knowles
In 2010, it was reported that Mathew had fathered a child with actress Alexsandra Wright while he was still married to Tina, whom he wed in 1980. Wright told the entertainment site Sandra Rose in 2013 that she and Mathew initially had a professional relationship that eventually morphed into a “very close personal one.”
Soon, she became pregnant and a paternity test later confirmed that Mathew was the father of her son, Nixon.
The affair rocked the Knowles family. After learning of Mathew’s alleged infidelity, Tina filed for divorce. Their marriage officially ended in 2011.
In 2014, Wright told Inside Edition that Mathew was basically a deadbeat, explaining that he had allegedly failed to pay child support and had never met their son.
“I don’t expect Beyoncé to take accountability. It’s not her problem. It’s not her situation,” she told the outlet.
But Wright seemed hopeful that her son would one day meet his big sister.
Koi Knowles
Koi was also born in 2010 to Mathew Knowles. Koi’s mother, TaQoya Branscomb, told Inside Edition in 2014 that she met Mathew while working as a dancer. (She now has a career in real estate.)
“He treated me like I was the love of his life,” she said (via Madame Noire).
But Mathew allegedly ditched her after she became pregnant and gave birth. Branscomb went on to admit to her role in the situation and expressed regret about the affair, saying: “Yes, I slept with a married man and it was the wrong thing to do, but I have a beautiful daughter that came out of the situation.”
Well, she’s right about that. Koi, an aspiring entertainer, even draws comparisons to her big sisters.
Reports say that Mathew has been ordered to pay child support for little Koi, but it’s unclear if he’s hands-on and really in the picture. Branscomb has said in the past that she raises Koi on her own and that Mathew has never publicly acknowledged their baby girl.
But she’s hoping Koi will eventually be embraced by her sisters.
“They are half-sisters and maybe one day down the line that can be made possible,” she added.
We’ll see.
