Becoming Beyoncé

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  The girls then did what they always did when they got upset: They called Tina. Tina told them to come straight home so they could all discuss it. They did as she suggested; Mathew stayed behind. “I’m the mother, so you know, it was more like crying spells, comforting them,” Tina said as to what happened when the girls finally got home. “Nobody talked about business, because it was real painful for them.”

  That night at home, Mathew, Tina, Beyoncé, and Kelly tried to hash things out and achieve some clarity where this new problem was concerned. Mathew explained that since the girls had turned eighteen they could legally veto—or “disaffirm”—their management contract with him. In almost every state (including Texas), a minor can invalidate a contract upon reaching that age. This law, Mathew explained, is designed as a protection for minors who’ve entered into contracts they later feel are not in their best interests.

  “So what do you girls want to do?” Tina asked.

  “I just don’t want to be a part of something this sketchy,” Beyoncé said. “Maybe I should just go solo.” Everyone looked at her with surprise. Of course, for years people had been telling Beyoncé she could be a single artist. However, she had always said the group was her priority. Perhaps now, though, given this dilemma, things had changed for her. She also realized that Destiny’s Child was viewed by the record label as a group. Therefore, working as a duo with Kelly wasn’t even a consideration.

  There was some talk of maybe adding Solange to the act to round it out as a trio. In fact, Solange had shown great potential in recent years as a singer and songwriter. In the past, Mathew had been encouraging of her aspirations, while Tina was the one with reservations. Now both parents weren’t so sure they wanted Solange in the business. It was a tough game, as they both well knew, and with so much of their focus always on Beyoncé, it was as if they hoped for their younger daughter to find another interest. While Beyoncé wasn’t the only one in the family with talent, Solange would have a long way to go before being able to prove to her parents that she should be taken seriously. Maybe to placate her, Mathew agreed to let her go out on the road with Destiny’s Child as one of its troupe of background dancers. But as for joining the group? That wasn’t going to happen. Besides, she was only thirteen and her parents both felt she was too young.

  “Maybe this is finally the end of Destiny’s Child,” Beyoncé said.

  “Well, shoot, if you go solo then where does that leave me?” Kelly asked.

  “You go solo, too, Kelly,” Beyoncé answered. “You can do it. I know you can.”

  “I guess so,” Kelly decided, seeming uncertain.

  “Again, I want this to be your decision, girls,” Mathew said. He hastened to add that his opinion was that they’d all worked too long and too hard to now throw away everything they’d achieved. He suggested that they think long and hard before making any final decisions about solo careers. Timing is everything, he warned them.

  “What would you say about getting two new girls?” Tina offered.

  “I’d be down with that,” Beyoncé said quickly. Kelly agreed.

  Tina then offered that if they did manage to somehow work the situation out with LeToya and LaTavia, one or both of them could still present a problem down the line, “and the group is going to just self-destruct.” She said that LeToya suffered from asthma, and that LaTavia “is sort of sickly a lot, isn’t she?” Tina felt they needed alternate members, two girls in the wings who could step in at a moment’s notice and fill one or two spots in case of an emergency. She added, “Basically the other two girls don’t sing anyway, they just dance. So we could have dancers in their costumes and it would still give the same visual effect.” Though this idea sounded reasonable to everyone, it really wasn’t true that LeToya and LaTavia never sang. Perhaps Tina was referring to lead vocals, most of which really were performed by Beyoncé and Kelly.

  Depression

  The next morning, Beyoncé didn’t emerge from her bedroom—and there she would remain for the next few weeks. “I became so depressed,” she later said. “It was such a dark time for me. I felt sad, angry, and pissed off.” Her publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, recalled, “It was the first time I really saw her just sort of go into a shell.” The girls’ choreographer, Junella Segura, added, “I would be speaking to Tina and Tina would say, ‘She didn’t even get out of bed today.’ ”

  While Beyoncé was sequestered in her room, Tina would check on her every few hours, if only to tell her how much she loved her. Sometimes she would climb into bed with her; mother and daughter would then softly pray. Or Beyoncé would put her head on Tina’s shoulder and cry. They talked about old times: about “Miss Ann” and Girls Tyme, Debra and Denise, and everything that Mathew had done for Destiny’s Child. After all, Beyoncé had been at the center of all of it. “You were there even before Kelly,” Tina reminded her, according to what she later recalled. “Nobody has worked harder than you, and your fans know it!” Beyoncé said that the more she thought about it, the more certain she had become that the group’s followers were going to blame her for its breakup since she was the lead singer. Tina told her that she couldn’t worry about public opinion. If she made every move with an eye toward what the world would think of her, Tina warned, she would be paralyzed with fear for the rest of her career.

  Since there were a couple of contracted engagements in the Texas area in the last two weeks of the year, Destiny’s Child was forced to perform as a duet, just Beyoncé and Kelly. These were mediocre performances as a result of unfamiliar staging and vocals. There were also problems with sound and lighting cues. Everything seemed off with the absence of half the group. Beyoncé actually tripped and fell onstage. “We have no room to look sloppy right now,” she complained after the first show, “so this is not good. It’s not only about the missing girls, either,” she added, “it’s about connecting with the audience, and I can’t do that when I bring all this drama onto the stage with me.” After the Texas shows, she and Kelly did a telephone radio interview with WGCI in Chicago. Doing such things without LaTavia and LeToya was bad enough, but making it worse was that it officially put Columbia/Sony on notice that there was an internal problem.

  On January 4, 2000, LeToya and LaTavia sent a letter to both Beyoncé and Kelly, chastising them for having appeared in public without them. They reminded Beyoncé and Kelly that they fully intended to remain in Destiny’s Child, that their not wanting Mathew as their manager didn’t mean they wanted out of the group. “What world are they livin’ in?” Beyoncé asked when she read the letter. “Those girls have lost their minds!” Then she returned to her room, now more than ever uninterested in what was going on around her.

  In the weeks after LaTavia and LeToya’s disaffirmation letter, Beyoncé emerged from her room only to perform those couple of concerts and then attend church, as she always did, at St. John’s Methodist. She would sit in the balcony, mostly unbothered by other churchgoers. Sometimes she would become so emotional hearing Pastor Rudy Rasmus speak, especially when it was about relationships, that she would break down into sobs, as reported by Lola Ogunnaike for Vibe. “Right now we’re trusting you to fix our relationships, Lord,” the pastor said one Sunday during the height of the conflict in Destiny’s Child, “to put us back together like you intended us to be.” Mathew and Tina were seated nearby, along with Solange. Kelly was a couple of rows away. “Thank you, Jesus,” Beyoncé would repeat over and over again as if in a trance, while she rocked back and forth in the pew, her eyes closed, her head tilted upward. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.”

  Beyoncé’s Missive

  No one fully understood her. Or if they did, they didn’t want to ascribe feelings to her that they thought might be unattractive or make her seem self-involved. “LaTavia and LeToya were like sisters to her,” people around her kept saying, “and that’s why she’s devastated by their leaving the group.” That was the way everyone seemed to look at it. “Because they are so close
,” they kept repeating, “she is going to miss them so much.” Either they didn’t completely understand Beyoncé Knowles or, again, they were trying to protect what they thought was her image, because in truth, the emotions she felt were more complex than just feelings of longing for her defected singing partners.

  Of course, on some level she would miss the girls. They’d been through a lot together, especially she and LaTavia. Some people, such as Taura Stinson—the writer who had penned Destiny’s Child’s first recording, “Killing Time”—felt that even though Kelly Rowland had an important place in Beyoncé’s life, LaTavia was actually closer to her. Their relationship had been further cemented when LaTavia revealed a few years earlier the painful secret that she was being sexually molested. Beyoncé stood by her side and supported her throughout the ordeal. She did love her, and felt the same way about LeToya. In some respects, they were like sisters. But Beyoncé was also a practical young woman, a trait she shared with her mother and, to a certain extent, her father. By this time, she was accustomed to losing “sisters.” After Ashley, Nina, and Nicki, she’d made up her mind that any of them could go at a moment’s notice, and the show would have to go on. She had been ready to kiss LeToya goodbye some time before. In fact, she now felt that if they’d just fired LeToya back then, they might have been able to save LaTavia. But what was done was done. While she would miss both girls, she would get over it . . . just as she had the others.

  Still, Beyoncé had a lot to get off her chest where LaTavia and LeToya were concerned, which is probably why she decided to memorialize her feelings in a letter to them. While it’s not dated, it’s known that it was received by the girls on January 5, 2000. She started off by saying, “I have shared some of the best moments of my life with the two of you by my side. I have also shared some of the worst.” She then wrote that Destiny’s Child had been her priority since the day they all met and “if anything, and I mean anything,” ever got in the way of their success, it was not of her doing.

  Beyoncé also reminded the girls of what Mathew had done for them, speculating that they had probably forgotten “the white house on Parkwood that you both spent many summers living in that we had to sell, the car we all piled into that we had to sell, the job that Mathew quit to dedicate countless hours to Destiny’s Child. You were there when people called him crazy for dedicating his time and money to us,” she wrote, adding, “It’s very sad when people become successful that they forget how they got where they are and who helped them.”

  She noted that ever since she was nine years old, people had asked why she was in a group and not performing as a solo artist. She always explained that the reason for it was because she loved the girls and she didn’t want to sing without them. However, when Destiny’s Child had its first release, she received many offers to do “videos, soundtracks, albums and movies” as a solo artist. Still, she noted, she had turned them all down because she wanted to remain loyal to the group. She said she was sorry LaTavia and LeToya felt the offers she had received were merely because Mathew was her manager, and not because she was talented. Her “personal success,” she wrote, was never as important as Destiny’s Child’s to her, which was why she’d turned down all of those opportunities. However, she hastened to add, “we all know that our contributions are not anywhere close to being equal, yet we all get paid equally.” Beyoncé also noted that she never raised an objection to that financial distribution, though she said she certainly could have.

  Additionally, she wrote, “I never asked for the best clothes or better treatment. In fact, I have settled for the worst on numerous occasions just to avoid a conflict and keep the peace. I also never complained when you didn’t sing one note on numerous songs on the [presumably first] album. I’ve never complained when I was working my butt off in the studio as I did on the last album [the second, The Writing’s on the Wall] when the two of you were both either sleeping or on your phones approximately eighty percent of the time. I never complained when the two of you were lip singing to my vocals on some of the videos and on stage.” She said it was always her intention to convey to the public that their contributions were equal. In fact, she wrote, if one were to analyze the situation objectively, the only person who’d really been treated unfairly in the group was her.

  What bothered her most, she wrote, was that LaTavia and LeToya had “made a business decision for the group without discussing it with myself or Kelly” concerning the disaffirmation of their contracts with Mathew. “Although we never would say it,” she wrote, “we were no longer friends. I feel that the two of you did not enjoy my presence.”

  Beyoncé further noted that the last time “we had drama,” both LaTavia and LeToya promised that there would be no further problems. She said she had warned them both that she could not continue to live her life with their constant upsets. “Approximately every three weeks (or less) there is drama caused by one or both of you,” she wrote. She said it’d been that way for at least the last two years, “and I don’t deserve this! So, don’t think that this [presumably their no longer being in the group] is because of Mathew,” she concluded, “it’s just that I can’t continue to live with the same drama that I have dealt with for so many years.”

  Quitting Destiny’s Child?

  No matter how depressed she was, Beyoncé definitely wasn’t going to miss her next vocal lesson with Kim Wood Sandusky. Singing had always been her salvation; it could still lift her from the doldrums. In the midst of all this conflict in her life, she showed up at Kim’s. “Are you okay?” Kim asked, concerned. The two sat next to each other on a wooden bench in front of a grand piano. “I’m just sad,” Beyoncé confessed. “LaTavia and LeToya are leaving the group, and I don’t know yet what I’m going to do.” Kim put her arm around Beyoncé. “In a career like the one I know you’re going to have,” she told her, “you’re going to have growing pains.” She explained to her that this moment would probably not be the last time she’d feel such sadness or heartache, that it was all part of the process of growth in a tough industry. “Sometimes, change is good,” she told her, pulling her in close. “Maybe it’s good they left. Maybe this will open a new door for you.”

  “You may be right. Can we pray?” Beyoncé asked. The two women had often prayed at the start or conclusion of their lessons. “Of course,” Kim said.

  Years later, Kim Wood Sandusky recalled, “What I asked God to do for Beyoncé was to guide her through this storm and to raise her to heights that she’d never before known. I gave her some water as she collected herself. ‘Okay, we have work to do,’ I said. She pulled herself together and said, ‘I’m ready, Kim.’ And we got to it.”

  A big concern of Beyoncé’s at this time had to do with Kelly’s future. She felt a strong allegiance to her and realized that by going solo she was forcing her to do the same. Beyoncé understood Kelly well, though. Kelly was tough, maybe tougher than even herself. After all, Kelly never had it easy in any of the groups in which they’d sung together—how many times had her head been on the chopping block? Now that she’d finally made it, she wasn’t about to let anyone snatch her success from her. No. She knew that Kelly would be just fine.

  Then there was the matter of songs. Because Beyoncé had already begun writing for the next Destiny’s Child album, she had a group sound in mind. Writing for solo performances was a very different task. Maybe going solo at this time was too soon, too rushed?

  The next day, Beyoncé made her decision. First, she called the group’s attorney Ken Hertz to give him the news. Then she faxed a formal letter to Don Ienner, the president of her record label. Her decision? She was leaving Destiny’s Child. She was sorry to see the group disband, but felt it was inevitable.

  As soon as he received her letter, Ienner called Beyoncé and told her he fully supported her decision. He wanted her to be absolutely sure, though. Also, he wondered how Mathew felt about it. Beyoncé said that her father understood. She also said that as far as she was concerned, she wasn’t leaving
the group. Rather, the group had left her! After that call, Mathew telephoned the label’s business affairs department to inform them of Beyoncé’s decision. The reaction was not one of great surprise, given what they knew was going on. In the end, the label felt that Beyoncé would be a very successful solo artist and sell untold millions of records for them. Therefore, the plan was to give it a few more weeks and then make an official announcement to the press.

  “Tomorrow, We Fight Back”

  After about another week of Beyoncé’s confusion and sadness, Tina Knowles had her fill of it. She went into her daughter’s room, drew back the shades on all of the windows, and sat next to Beyoncé. “Do you want me to tell you the truth?” she asked her. “Because you know I always tell you the truth.” Beyoncé nodded. “Okay. Fine. You need to dust yourself off and do what you have to do to continue your career,” Tina said firmly. “We’re gonna get through this thing together, you and me.”

  “But I don’t know what to do,” Beyoncé said. Even though she’d told the record company she wanted to go solo, obviously she was still conflicted.

  “Then you need to get on your knees and pray,” Tina told her, according to her later testimony. She added that it didn’t really matter to her one way or the other what Beyoncé did, as long as she did something. All she really wanted was for Beyoncé to not let everything she’d worked so hard to attain “go down the tubes because of two girls.” Beyoncé pointed out that the new video for “Say My Name” was about to be produced and that she didn’t know how they would ever be able to do it with just herself and Kelly. “Well, we’re sure not gonna figure it out laying up here in this bed, now are we?” Tina said. She added that she was giving Beyoncé the rest of the day to be sad. “But tomorrow? Tomorrow, we fight back,” she declared.