Long before Mathew and Tina Knowles were protecting Beyoncé from the dreads of the music industry and reporters. They proved they would do anything to protect Beyoncé interest. As the bombshell biography Becoming Beyoncé, by J. Randy Taraborrelli, continues to make headlines, Andretta Tillman friends Pat Felton speaks exclusively on seeing Andretta Tillman signing documents on her death bed at the request of Tina Knowles.
On that Friday morning Andretta seemed much better, after having a terrible time, suffering a heart attack and kidney failure. As Cholotte and I walked up to Andretta’ room doorway, much to our surprise we saw Andretta and Tina. Ann was sitting upright in bed signing documents. She details in Becoming Beyoncé. ”After she finished, Andretta handed the documents back to Tina, who inserted them into a manila envelope. “You really do look so much better to me,” Tina told her. “I’ll check on you later, Ann,” she said. “God bless you.” She held Andretta’s hand for a few moments before taking her leave, nodding at Pat and Cholotte as she departed.” Felton states she asked “Ann, what in the world were you doing?” you are in intensive care, “Are you okay to sign documents?” Ann then said “Oh, it was nothing,” “Just some papers having to do with Destiny’s Child.” Felton stated “Ann should not have been signing anything in her condition especially not legal documents.” “I didn’t know if Ann had called Tina, or how Tina ended up being there with these papers. It really concerned me.” According to the book by J. Randy Taraborrelli we now know what was in the document she was signing, Destiny’s Child Management papers that would be used to take money away from Tillman’s sons in a future lawsuit
Felton recalls, ” About an hour later we waited in a small room. Suddenly a set of double doors swung wide open and out came Andretta on a gurney, surrounded by a medical team. That rushed her back to ICU were she later died.
The Making of a Child of Destiny “The Andretta Tillman Story”, a memoir by Tillman’s Partner and Knowles family friend Brian Moore, claimed at Tillman funeral he and Mathew Knowles had a dispute.Where Knowles appeared to be out of control as he said some unkind words about Tillman before storming off and not attending the services.
Beyoncé’s dad, Mathew Knowles, could barely hide his rampant drug use.
Mathew was known to go in Tillman “garage to do cocaine or other drugs” during rehearsals for Beyonce’s group, Moore claimed. He “would come back ranting and raving … yelling and carrying on,” and would attend important meetings about her future career “high as a kite.”
Cocaine was only one of his vices. An admitted sex addict, Mathew often cheated on wife Tina, the book said. According to the new blockbuster biography, Becoming Beyonce, desperate Tina even once turned to drug dealing brown for help. Moore claims Tillman confronted Brown, and asked him if he was supplying Knowles with drugs, a claim he denied.
But even as those around Knowles began to notice his frequent drug-induced rages, he only “increased … his drug use,” Moore wrote. “It was getting out of control. He started lying even more to Tina and giving her the impression that there were meetings going on … Mathew used them as a cover for extramarital affairs with different women.”
And Tina would not take it. Brown told Radar that tensions between Tina and Mathew Knowles often boiled over into explosive fights. “Have you seen the show ‘Empire’?” he joked. “That whole thing between them was like ‘Empire’ before the TV show!” He eventually went to rehab for sex addiction and the couple’s divorce was finalized in 2011.
Meanwhile, Beyoncé’s best friend and another member of Girl’s Tyme, LaTavia Roberson, was living her own private hell as she was repeatedly molested by a Houston cop, the book alleged.
LaTavia has since confirmed the abuse, and according to Brian, it was that incident and witnessing Mathew’s rages that turned Beyoncé from a sweet Houston girl to a ruthless international pop icon.
“After this Beyoncé started to get thick skin,” he wrote. “She was more edgy and protective. You could see Beyoncé sort of grow up.”
