Tina Knowles Chopped Her Own Hair to Save Beyoncé’s Music Video Look
Tina Knowles saved the day (and the style) on a Destiny’s Child shoot—with scissors and some serious mom magic.
When it comes to being a superstar mom, Tina Knowles isn’t just backstage—she’s all in, scissors and all!
In a story from her new memoir Matriarch, the designer and hairstylist remembers going full superhero mode during Destiny’s Child’s 1997 music video shoot for “No, No, No (Part 2).” Back then, the group included Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, LaTavia Roberson, and LeToya Luckett, with Tina in charge of their hair. The pressure was on, and things didn’t go quite as planned.
“Each girl wanted something special, and Beyoncé’s request was that I would let her have highlights for the first time,” Tina wrote about her then-16-year-old daughter. “I had light blonde ones in my own hair, but she would have fake platinum blond hair I would glue in as little streaks.”
Sounds easy, right? Not quite.
When Tina arrived at the glam area, she immediately noticed something was off. The makeup artists, Chris Maldonado and Eric Ferrell, had taken over most of the space and gave her only a tiny corner. They were laughing and chatting—until she walked in. “They not only fell silent but scowled at her,” she remembered.
Still, Tina powered through. But when Beyoncé came in ready for her new blonde streaks, they hit a major snag: Tina didn’t bring enough hair.
Feeling the heat and her daughter’s “frustration,” Tina realized the others were probably waiting to see her fail. But things turned around fast when Beyoncé casually called her “mama.” That’s when the makeup artists burst out laughing—this time with her, not at her.
“They confessed they had been freezing me out,” she wrote. Maldonado admitted a friend of his was supposed to style the hair, but the plan changed last minute because “the director’s girlfriend was gonna do the hair.” (Plot twist: Tina was not dating the director—he was 15 years younger!)
Once the truth was out, they all became friends. But Beyoncé still needed those highlights.
So Tina made the ultimate mom move: “I looked at myself in the mirror, took a little scissors and began to cut some highlights from my own hair, just enough here and there to glue into my daughter’s hair without leaving me bald-headed,” she wrote.
Maldonado and Ferrell were stunned. “Clearly Beyoncé’s mom,” they said—because what other hairstylist would literally cut their own hair to make a style work?
Now that’s what we call motherly love—with flair.
Matriarch is out now.
