Tina Knowles Lawson was once a Beyoncé.
In the premiere episode of the "In My Head with Heather Thomson" podcast, Knowles, 66, revealed that Beyoncé is actually her maiden name. "A lot of people don’t know that Beyoncé is my last name. It’s my maiden name," she admitted during the podcast episode. "My name was Celestine Beyoncé, which at that time was not a cool thing to have that weird name. I wanted my name to be Linda Smith because those were the cool names."
Knowles Lawson, who divorced Mathew Knowles and remarried Richard Lawson in 2015, went on to admit that various family members have different spellings of the Beyoncé last name. "I think me and my brother Skip were the only two that had B-E-Y-O-N-C-E," she explained. "And it’s interesting and it shows you the times because we asked my mother when I was grown I was like why is my brother’s name spelled B-E-Y-I-N-C-E? And you know it’s all these different spellings. And my mom’s reply to me and was that’s what they put on your birth certificate."
In fact, the BeyHive know that one of Beyoncé's best friends is none other than her cousin Angie Beyince.
As for why Tina's mother didn't argue to correct the spelling, it seemed to be part of the struggle for Black America. "She said, 'I did one time, the first time, and I was told be happy that you’re getting a birth certificate.' Because at one time black people didn’t get birth certificates," she said.
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