Tina Knowles is opening up about a scary situation.
The mother of Beyoncé and Solange Knowles revealed she was diagnosed with breast cancer during a “CBS Mornings” sit-down on Tuesday.
“I was diagnosed with breast cancer in my left breast,” Knowles, 71, told host Gayle King while on air. “I’m getting emotional because it was like, you know, I’ve always tried to take care of myself and I just, was in disbelief.”
The matriarch missed her annual mammogram during the COVID pandemic and forgot to reschedule. Last year, when she went for the screening, doctors found two tumors — one which was benign and one with cancer.
According to The American Cancer Society, women over 55 should get a mammogram every one to two years.
“It was stage 1, which I thought was the earliest stage,” Knowles continued. “And then when I told my sister, she said, ‘No, actually, there’s a zero.’ So if I had gone for my mammogram, I would’ve got it at the zero stage. Thank God, it was still very small, hadn’t spread. It was a very slow-spreading cancer.”
In her book Matriarch, she revealed how her loved ones reacted to the news.
Beyoncé, she writes, “took it well, staying positive, and I could already feel her mind racing, focusing on this as a task to tackle with precision.” Meanwhile, Solange said, “Mom, we are going to take care of this.”
