I don’t know what it is about Ms. Tina Knowles—AKA Mama Tina AKA Beyoncé and Solange’s mother—that makes her such a joy, but she is. Perhaps it’s because scrolling through her Instagram lets you know, definitively, that she’s the one running the account. Or that she seems so down-to-earth that you wouldn’t mind hanging out with her. Whatever it is, Mama Tina pops in and out as needed, and if there’s one thing she doesn’t play about, it’s her family. In that role, she is always willing to let off a shot or two, gracefully and with class, of course, on whomever may be coming for her family.
Considering that her daughter is indisputably one of the most famous people on the planet, the number of people taking shots at Queen Bey and her family has never been low. Just in the past few weeks, for instance, country music artist Gavin Adcock came for Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” project because he was upset that his album was sitting behind hers on some charts—sour grapes and all. Just yesterday, Nicki Minaj came for all manner of folks associated with Jay-Z, who, as you know, is the husband of Beyoncé, and arguably one of, if not the, GOAT rappers. If you come for Jay, you might as well be coming for Bey. And again, Mama Tina don’t play about her family.
While one can never be entirely sure who Mama Tina is talking about when she starts tossing shade at people, since she rarely names names, you can, though, be sure that if folks are talking, the shade will be tossed.
On an Instagram account called thecarters08, which is a page dedicated to all things Beyoncé and Jay-Z (The Carters)—the 08 being a reference to 2008, when they were married; the page really is like a photobook for their family—whoever runs the account posted a video of Beyoncé talking about how lucky she is to have her mother around when she’s feeling lost.
The caption on that post reads, “it feels good to wake up knowing my favs didn’t lose their minds. like some people. y’all have a great day, remember to ignore the ignorance as @mstinaknowles would say.” Now, one can likely surmise that given the timing, the post is both dedicated to and about Nicki Minaj, who went on a posting spree on X about Jay for various reasons. Nicki Minaj had some things to get off her chest, as she does every so often. For the record, there is no clear indication that Nicki Minaj has any issues with Beyoncé, but having an issue with her husband is probably the same thing.
Anyway, Mama Tina follows this account (I checked) and decided that it was a worthwhile post to repost to her 4.2 million followers (I am one). So she did.
“It’s so easy to get confused, and it’s so easy to get lost and just be so unhappy. And I’ve had moments where I just felt like it was too much, you know. It’s not like I haven’t been through it. But I am always able to get back to myself because of you and because of the profound woman that you are, it’s because of you. It’s because of you. It’s because of you,” shared Beyoncé in a clip of a convo with her mother that I can’t place that I’m sure even novice Beyhive members can pinpoint. What point exactly Mama Tina is making with the clip, only she knows. Heck, maybe she just loved the clip. But we all know where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And Mama Tina loves to fan the flames here and there.
Gracefully, though, and with class.
[UPDATE: 7/10/25, 2:38pm: In response to questions about who (if anybody) she was talking about in her repost, Tina Knowles clarified that she was not shading anybody. On her Instagram, she changed the caption on her repost to point out that she, indeed, just loved the clip and it was purely about she and Beyoncé and had nothing to do with anybody else The caption now reads: “Wow I reposted this because it was talking about our relationship . It had nothing to do with anyone other than Me and Beyonce. Please stop being messy and dragging me into something I don’t have anything to do with! You guys should be ashamed !!! And all the bots are ridiculous!!!”]
