Becoming Beyoncé

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Maybe as a way of staying connected to Lyndall, she would often telephone his mother, Lydia Lockie, as she did when Destiny’s Child visited Germany. “She would call me and say how much she missed my home cooking,” Lydia Locke recalled. “I would say, ‘Girl, shut your mouth! Do you realize that most people in this world don’t get to travel like you do? So, enjoy it!’ She would say, ‘But I want some of your fried chicken and hot sauce, Mrs. Locke. I don’t want no Wienerschnitzel!’ We would laugh. ‘When I come home,’ she would say, ‘Me and Lyndall are eatin’ all your homemade pastries, and I don’t care how fat I get, either!’ I understood that she not only missed Lyndall, she missed me, too. After all, kids are raised by a village and I was certainly one of the villagers.”

  From time to time Beyoncé would also talk to Lyndall, of course. Meanwhile, though, she seemed to want to at least explore her options with Jay. The two would spend hours on the telephone, commiserating about life on the road, the loneliness of their profession, and anything else that was bothering her. Then, in the summer of 2002, they had the opportunity to vacation in the south of France. Though they wouldn’t discuss publicly what, if anything, was going on between them, they didn’t shy away from having their picture taken by paparazzi. At this early stage of their relationship, they were really just getting to know one another, though, taking it very slowly. “You have to understand,” Jay told the writer Smokey Fontaine. “I don’t even like for people to know what my girl looks like . . . and now I’m in a relationship with Michael Jackson!” Five years later, he would tell the same reporter, “We made a decision then to remain private about it. There are only a couple stories for the tabloids to write: ‘They’re a Couple!’ ‘They’re Married!’ ‘They’re Divorced!’ ”

  One thing was certain: Jay knew how to show Beyoncé a good time. Being in Europe with him was a first-class experience in every way. She was dazzled not only by the sites—and certainly the south of France has little in common with Houston—but by his solicitous attitude toward her. With money being no object, it was only the best hotels, the best restaurants, the best nightclubs . . . the best of the best. It was difficult for a country girl not to get completely swept away by all of it. Jay felt Beyoncé deserved a good, relaxing, and even romantic experience. For someone who worked as hard as she did, having this downtime with Jay and being treated like a princess in a foreign country meant a lot.

  “I remember at about this time my question to Beyoncé was: ‘Why are you putting yourself out there with Jay Z?’ ” recalled Lonnie Jackson. “We got to talking about what people expect of her and how invested the public can become in what they hope is a big love affair. I suggested, ‘Why don’t we create a fantasy for people? You’re becoming a sex symbol. People love you, so maybe let’s give ’em a little fantasy.’ She and I then wrote a song called ‘Intimate Fantasy,’ which was inspired by the public’s growing interest in her and Jay Z. Ultimately the song was never finished, but I always felt it was the foundation for a lot of sexy, fantasy-like songs she would record in the future, like ‘Baby Boy’ and ‘Naughty Girl.’ ”

  While she was in the south of France with Jay, Beyoncé called Lyndall in Houston, very excited about what she viewed as a bit of a personal victory. “I just jumped off a yacht into the water,” she exclaimed. “How cool is that? Jay didn’t think I could do it, but I sure showed him.”

  “Wait up! You’re hanging out with Jay Z again?” Lyndall asked. Apparently he didn’t even know they were vacationing together. “What’s up with you two?”

  “Oh my God,” Beyoncé exclaimed. “Not this again!”

  All Lyndall knew for sure was that every time he heard her talk about Jay Z, it was like a knife in the heart.

  Settlements

  In August 2002, the lawsuit against Mathew, Beyoncé, and Kelly filed by the Tillman estate was finally settled. By this time, most of those involved had given their depositions—the Tillman sons, Armon and Chris, as well as various business associates and friends and relatives, such as Andretta’s mother, Effie Lee, who was the Executor of Andretta’s estate. During the proceedings, there was no shortage of strange, awkward moments, such as when Beyoncé dropped in on Effie Lee’s deposition. Beyoncé embraced the older woman—who she called “Granny”—and offered words of encouragement. Even though the Knowleses and the Tillmans were now on different sides of a bitter war, old familial ties still tugged at them.

  As it would happen, Kelly Rowland’s deposition was nothing less than devastating to the Tillmans’ case. She went up against the lawyers several times. Always one to speak her mind, she actually accused LeToya Luckett and her mother, Pamela, of “probably tape recording our group meetings secretly because they were sneaky that way.” She also said that LeToya had somehow stolen her and Beyoncé’s Grammy tickets in 2001, thereby forcing the two of them to sit in “the peanut gallery even though we were all nominated for writing ‘Say My Name.’ Beyoncé and me, we had to sit up in the nosebleed section. I don’t know where [the Luckett party] sat, but I’m sure it was somewhere on the floor.” She was then asked to read out loud a letter she wrote to LaTavia and LeToya. “I refuse to be run over and receive punches from y’all,” it said in part. “Y’all have taught me not to take crap from anyone and to always watch your own back.”

  When later asked how much money she made from sales of the Survivor album, Kelly was unhappy about being forced to answer. Finally, she snapped, “One million dollars, okay? Dang!”

  In the end, whereas Beyoncé had been more than diplomatic, Kelly had been uncompromising. “Andretta never even spoke at the meetings,” she testified, “unless there was some kind of disagreement with the parents, and then she was just the peacemaker.” She said she was angry that the Tillman sons had filed a lawsuit and said they could have gotten money if they’d only just asked for it. “But suing our family? That’s not cool,” she said. Maybe her position wasn’t so surprising, considering how much Mathew meant to her as a surrogate father. If the case had gone to trial, though, her testimony would have been deadly to the Tillmans’ case.

  The Tillmans had estimated their losses to be as much as $35 million. In the end, Armon and Chris received a total of just $1.25 million. Split between them, it came to $550,750 each. Gross attorneys’ fees were $220,300, or 40 percent. After other miscellaneous expenses, each Tillman son received $232,127.21. Considering that the figure Mathew had in mind for them was $175,000 to be split between the two of them ($87,500 each), they made out better than they would have had they not sued. Still, the amount they ended up with does seem paltry, especially if Destiny’s Child sold between twenty and thirty million albums, as widely reported, not to mention management fees that would have been generated by six years of touring (1997–2002), as well as lucrative merchandising of those tours. Today, the brothers feel they were pressured into the settlement. They say they were told that Destiny’s Child owed Columbia/Sony about $9 million from unearned advances on their recordings and that if they went to trial they might not get any money at all!

  It’s difficult to say with any certainty who was told what in the context of the long-running and hard fought litigation. But if this is what the Tillman sons were told, it doesn’t seem to make much sense based upon other available information. After all, Kelly testified that she received a check for $1 million for the third DC album. Record companies customarily don’t give more money to artists who already owe them money. Rather, labels cross-collateralize against royalties due until the amount they owe is paid, and only then do the artists begin to make a profit. Who knows, maybe Kelly’s check was some sort of bonus or gift? Still, considering the records the group sold, it seems unlikely that Destiny’s Child was in arrears to their label for $9 million, especially after that third, megahit of an album. However, as is generally the case, in signing the settlement deal the Tillmans released all future claims, meaning they would not be entitled to any proceeds from the upcoming fourth (or any other) DC album, or from any othe
r tours.

  To an outsider it seems that the biggest problem the Tillmans faced in the litigation was that Mathew and Tina insisted that Mathew’s agreement with Andretta had been severely modified by joint consent to the Knowleses’ advantage. Yet the Knowleses were unable to produce that new, amended contract. The Tillmans maintained that no such new amended deal existed. However, if it did exist, it was their opinion that this document must have been the one Andretta was said to have signed on her deathbed, suggesting (so far as they were concerned) that she was coerced into it. Of course, Tina and Mathew denied this, saying the document was signed much earlier. At a trial, according to legal experts, the agreements that actually could have been produced would have been considered valid, which may have favored the Tillmans. Given they settled the case before it could go to trial we’ll never know what a judge would have decided.

  Today, Armon Tillman is an entertainment manager in Houston; his company is called Tillman Management. Was the family satisfied with the settlement? “No. Absolutely not,” he said. “On one hand, it wasn’t about the money and we were all very clear about that. But if it did have to come down to a figure, if that was the only way to rectify things, then what we got wasn’t enough. When you think of all the money Destiny’s Child made? It wasn’t enough. When you think of what my mom did, and what she gave up? It wasn’t enough.

  “To tell you the truth, some of the statements that were made in depositions and in settlement meetings made me feel worse than I had felt before the suit was filed,” he added. “My mother lost her life. Give her her due, okay? I mean, damn! So am I, as her son, satisfied? No. I am not. But am I bitter? No. I am not. It is what it is. We fought. We did our best for our mother. That’s what counts.”

  “A lot of people had said they loved my mom, but when it came time to show up for this thing [the case], man, did they run for cover!” exclaimed Chris Tillman. “Maybe they didn’t want to take sides, I don’t know. So I guess you could say it was a learning experience. It’s just that sometimes in this life, you learn things you really don’t want to know.”

  As for LaTavia and LeToya’s suit against Mathew, that too was settled with an undisclosed monetary settlement. Many members of their families were also dissatisfied. “From the beginning, I told the girls, ‘You do not settle with Mathew,’ ” recalled LaTavia’s aunt Yvonne Boyd. “I said, ‘Y’all need to take that dirty laundry and hang it out there on the line so everyone can see it.’ ” She felt that LaTavia would have received a bigger payout had they gone to court, one that in her opinion better reflected the many years her niece had put into the group since she was eight.

  It would seem that no one who litigated against the Knowles family was very happy with the outcome. But now it was all over. Indeed, by the summer of 2002, Armon and Chris Tillman were relegated to the Knowleses’ distant past. However, they would still have LaTavia and LeToya to contend with, because more trouble from them was right around the corner.

  When the song “Survivor” was released, LaTavia and LeToya felt that Beyoncé had them in mind when she wrote it, especially given the line “You thought that I’d be stressed without you / But I’m chillin’ / You thought that I wouldn’t sell without you / Sold nine million.” So they filed another lawsuit against her claiming that she had violated the settlement of the previous suit, which precluded either party from making “any public comment of a disparaging nature concerning one another.” Not only was Kelly once again incorporated into the litigation as a defendant, but so was Michelle—and both girls did nothing more than just sing on the record!

  Whereas some industry observers thought that LaTavia and LeToya’s first suit against Mathew, Beyoncé, and Kelly had some merit, most thought this latest suit was pushing it. Was the song really about them? How could anyone but Beyoncé know for certain? Beyoncé, after the suit was filed, angrily observed, “No one knows what goes on in the head of a person who writes a song.” Rather than fight it, though, she didn’t want to spend another second on it and the litigation was duly settled.

  “You wanna know what I think about them two girls?” Jay Z was overheard asking Beyoncé. The couple was in Houston, making their way through the busy airport getting ready to spend a few days with the Knowleses at the Missouri City home. “Forget about ’em,” he said. “And just when you’re fixin’ to start thinkin’ about ’em again? Don’t,” he said, putting his arm around her as they walked. “You feel me?” he asked.

  The two were trailed by a phalanx of assistants and other functionaries, both his and hers. It was a very busy contingent. Some were on cell phones, talking very urgently. Others were conversing and taking notes as they were walking. One was especially annoying, trying to get Beyoncé’s attention about a layout in Vogue she insisted that the pop star had to see “right now, it simply can’t wait.” Beyoncé shook her head and with a wave of her hand dismissed the idea of looking at the magazine in that very moment. “It can wait until I at least have a chance to sit down,” she said. She was edgy; things had not been easy for some time. “Please!” she exclaimed. “Fashion can wait five minutes!”

  In truth, Beyoncé hated the way things had gone down with her two former singing partners, especially with LaTavia, with whom she’d shared so much. It was difficult to reconcile that after working so hard and for so many years, their success—and the decisions each had made in light of it—was what finally laid ruin to their friendship. She had no choice but to accept what had happened and go forward with her life and career, figuring that LaTavia and LeToya were probably doing the same.

  Actually, the next couple of years would be challenging ones for both LaTavia and LeToya. First, they started a new group with two other singers, called Angel. That didn’t last long, however; no product was ever officially released. LaTavia in particular had a difficult time, and, as she put it, “I started to self-soothe with alcohol.” She would eventually rally, pull herself together, and continue her career, mostly as an actress.

  Today, LaTavia has her own hair/beauty line and is also an advocate for breast cancer awareness. (Her mom, Cheryl, is a survivor.) She still writes songs and owns her own music publishing company, and she is currently working on a memoir.

  “When I look back on what happened with Destiny’s Child, I wouldn’t change a thing,” LaTavia said in 2015. “I loved the girls. Any squabbles we had were because LeToya and I were so young and so frustrated with management. But even today, if I saw Mathew, I would give him a hug. The training I received from him has been invaluable in my life. Not only that, the Destiny’s Child journey brought me to the place where I eventually had my daughter, Lyric, and I wouldn’t trade her for the world.”

  As for LeToya Luckett, she eventually embarked on a successful music career of her own. Her first album, LeToya, went to number one on the Billboard charts in 2006, and a follow-up, Lady Love, made it to number twelve. She would also have a recurring role on HBO’s Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson series Ballers, as well as appear on VH1’s (and, more recently, Centric/BET’s) Single Ladies and HBO’s Treme. In 2015, she was cast in an NBC drama pilot, Love Is a Four Letter Word.

  In 2010, eight years after these various litigations were settled, Andretta, Tillman’s son, Armon—now about 30—represented an artist who was up for a role in a movie. The audition was to take place, as fate would have it, at Mathew’s Music World headquarters in Houston.

  It had been years since Armon and Mathew last laid eyes on one another. Mathew passed by Armon twice in a hallway. Both times, he didn’t seem to notice him.

  A third time, though, he looked at Armon with a curious expression. After giving it a moment, Armon decided to walk down the hall and knock on Mathew’s opened office door. By this time, Mathew was sitting behind his desk. “What can I do for you?” he asked as he gazed over his reading glasses at the visitor. With no small amount of hesitation, Armon said he realized that Mathew had seen him on the premises and was probably wondering who he was. “Well,” he continue
d somewhat tremulously, “I’m . . . Andretta Tillman’s son, Armon. How’ve you been, Mathew?”

  Mathew’s mouth dropped open. He fixed him with an earnest gaze for about fifteen, maybe twenty, seconds. The moment hung awkwardly. Finally, Mathew found his voice, again. “So . . . what can I do for you?” he repeated.

  “Nothing,” Armon said. “I just thought maybe you’d want to . . . I don’t know . . . talk maybe?”

  Even after everything that had happened, there was still a warm spot in Armon Tillman’s heart for Mathew Knowles, a man who had, in many ways, been a father figure to him. However, any longing Armon felt for an emotional connection to Mathew was, at least judging by the older man’s expression, not reciprocated. “Okay. Just leave your number with my secretary,” Mathew suggested. So far as Armon could tell, he seemed somewhat confused and maybe just a little sad.

  “No. On second thought, that’s okay,” Armon responded. “I just thought I’d say hello,” he concluded with a small, amused smile. Then, as Mathew went back to his reading, Armon turned and walked away.

  PART FIVE