Since Mathew Knowles’ cheating scandal and divorce, he and Beyonce haven’t had the greatest father-daughter relationship. However, that hasn’t stopped him from speaking out about many different aspects that contributed to the foundation of his daughter’s massive career. By now, most fans know Knowles has published books detailing Destiny’s Child’s rise to the top and now he’s sharing details about a lie that cost him lots of money – a staggering $175 million to be exact.
False Accusations:
According to Complex magazine, Mathew Knowles claims a series of lies about Beyonce and Destiny’s Child caused him to lose out on a deal for $175 million. It has been reported that Knowles claims his former attorneys Lang Ferrer PLLC have accused him of refusing to pay $50,000 for their work. The attorneys claim Knowles held a silent auction during Super Bowl weekend back in 2017. Now, he’s being accused of quietly selling his Beyoncé’s, and Destiny Child’s memorabilia. Then to make matters worse, they’ve also accused Knowles of pocketing the money from the quiet sale to avoid paying creditors.
As a result of the accusations, Knowles claims some of his potential business partners have opted not to work with him. According to The Blast, Knowles’ company, Music World, had deals in the works with a Port Royal Resort and Texas Southern University. The Port Royal Resort deal, alone, was worth the $175 million. In addition to that deal, he claims he also claims he had another business opportunity to license over 3,000 songs. Unfortunately, that deal also fell through.
Denying All Allegations:
Despite the attorneys’ claims, Mathew Knowles has denied all of the allegations and he’s even clapped back with a countersuit of his own. The 66-year-old has filed a defamation lawsuit seeking $2 million in damages. In the lawsuit filed on February 21, Knowles described the attorneys’ actions as threatening and he argues that their legal invoices were “excessive and unreasonable.”
On February 21, Knowles filed new docs in the case accusing his former lawyers of having – prior to the lawsuit – threatening to make things “ugly for him” if he did not pay what Knowles called “excessive and unreasonable” legal invoices.
Controversial Comments:
The latest news follows reports about controversial comments Knowles made in reference to a chapter in his book where he discussed his attraction to fair-complected women. In fact, he even went a step further and admitted that only black women who looked white caught his eye. “I have a chapter in the book that talks about eroticized rage. I talk about going to therapy and sharing – one day I had a breakthrough – that I used to date mainly White women or very high-complexion Black women that looked White. I actually thought when I met Tina, my former wife, that she was white. Later I found out that she wasn’t, and she was actually very much in-tune with her Blackness.”
However, he didn’t stop there. He even went a step further claiming Beyonce probably wouldn’t be as famous is she were dark-skinned. During an interview on US pop radio market, he defended his comments and further explained what he meant. “I’ve been in the music industry for 25 years. When I made that statement, I was speaking specifically as our radio is in America,” Knowles said.
“We have urban radio and we have pop radio. When we look at pop radio we can look, I don’t use Beyoncé or Solange my younger daughter, I really talk about Mariah Carey and others, Rihanna, that it’s just a known fact, if we look over the last ten years, and we look at colourism – which is discrimination based on the shade of colour – it’s a fact.It’s a fact that Beyoncé or any of the other artists, Alicia Keys, I can go on and on, a shade of color does make a difference in pop radio.”
Like last time, his latest comments have also sparked controversy. Many fans have accused Knowles of using these types of situations to his advantage for the sake of publicity.
Check out some of the comments:
Here are a few of the tweets where fans criticized Knowles for admitting he practiced colorism:
https://twitter.com/Suzyknowsbest/status/970456363586514944
Money Moves:
In addition to the $2 million lawsuit that was recently filed, Mathew Knowles is also looking to make big bucks with his new book Racism From the Eyes of a Child. Knowles managed Destiny’s Child for more than 10 years before leaving the group back in 2006. Knowles now works as a visiting professor at Texas Southern University, but despite his relationship with the university, he claims the lawsuit also impacted the university’s decision to prohibit him from becoming a tenured professor. So, Knowles is looking to recoup from a number of losses he claims are a result of his former attorneys’ actions.
Knowles is also asking the court not to dismiss his defamation lawsuit against the attorneys.
