‘She’s a symbol’: How Beyoncé’s mum Tina Knowles wound up in the Renaissance tour mosh pit

She loves getting involved

11 months ago

There are many things you may expect to happen at a Beyoncé concert. Sequins shaking, hair flipping, unearthly vocals belting, and diva face expressing. But, what most fans didn’t envision of their night at the Renaissance world tour is sharing the pit with Beyoncé’s 69-year-old mum Tina Knowles. Yet, that’s exactly what’s been going down.

“I was dancing and singing and watching Beyoncé when I felt someone pushing me a little bit from my right side and when I turned I saw a woman but only the back of her face,” says Clara who was in the floor level standing section of the audience for Beyoncé’s performance in Brussels – right next to Tina.

“I didn’t immediately see that it was her,” Clara explains. “I thought it was just a woman enjoying the concert and that maybe she was sick and wanted to go to the front to breathe. But then I turned my head and I saw her face and was like, ‘oh, it’s Tina’?!”

So, who actually is Beyoncé’s mum Tina Knowles?

Amongst the Bey Hive, Beyoncé’s mum is a celebrity in her own right. “A lot of people know her,” says Clara, who posted a viral video (70k likes) of Tina being lifted over the barrier out of the pit to TikTok. “Even in the comments people were like ‘oh my God. You’ve got to take care of her!’ she says. “She made the queen (Beyoncé), so people think she’s the queen, too.

“Yeah. She’s a symbol.”

As well as being Beyoncé and Solange’s mum, Tina is a celebrated fashion designer with multiple labels, which have been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, L’Official, and Sports Illustrated. She’s also designed costumes for multiple films, including Dreamgirls, Pink Panther, and Austin Powers, featuring Beyoncé.

But despite her familial and personal success, not everyone in the crowd at the Renaissance night in Brussels realised who Tina was: “At first, there was a Belgian guy who told her not to pass because he’d been there since the morning [saving his spot]. Then, suddenly, everybody realised and we were all so shocked,” says Clara.

@sciutocarla

The most profitable concert of my life 😂😂 #beyonce #renaissance #brussels #belgium #concert #happymotherday

♬ original sound – carla sciuto

Wait, but why was Beyoncé’s 69-year-old mum in the mosh pit?

Tabloid reports suggested “paramedics rescued” Tina from the mosh pit. But other evidence suggests she was there intentionally. Clara specifies that Tina had one security man with her for her venture out into the pit and “when we realised she needed to go, people helped her [to be lifted out]. It was pretty safe.”

According to other fans in the comment section of Clara’s video, this isn’t the first time Tina has ventured out among the public to watch her daughter perform. “Literally the exact same thing happened in Stockholm,” wrote one fan. “She likes to be among the crowds sometimes to see how the concert is,” added another. Which is, seriously, such a proud mum thing to do.

Judging from Tina’s Instagram, she’s definitely been enjoying touring the world with Bey. “It is going down here in Stockholm,” she updated her four million followers from Sweden last week. “The crowd is going nuts.”

And she was, probably, a part of it.