Tina Knowles, the 70-year-old businesswoman and mother of pop icons Beyoncé and Solange, shared a surprising and personal story about the conception of her younger daughter, Solange.
Knowles revealed that Solange was conceived during a trip to Egypt on the Nile River.
“I thought I was having a boy and wanted to name him Niles. But little did I know, here came this girl,” she recounted during the May 23 episode.
This intimate detail came to light as Knowles discussed the inspiration behind her daughters’ unique names.
She shared that she got the idea for Solange’s name from a baby book she bought in Paris.
“I bought a baby name book in Paris for my girlfriend who was expecting. And then the next year I wound up having a baby, so I pulled that old book out,” she explained.
Solange, now 37, had previously reflected on her conception story during a 2017 interview with the Evening Standard.
She spoke of the profound connection she felt to Egypt, where her parents conceived her after visiting the Giza pyramids.
This connection influenced her 2017 tour, titled “Orion’s Rise,” and inspired her collaboration with Kendrick Lamar on the song “Nile” for Beyoncé’s 2019 “The Lion King: The Gift” soundtrack.
Solange was born in June 1986, five years after Knowles gave birth to her first daughter, Beyoncé.
Knowles also shed light on the origin of Beyoncé’s name, explaining that it is derived from her own maiden name, which evolved from “Boyoncé” and “Beyincé.” She felt it was important to preserve the name due to the scarcity of boys in the family.
Knowles, who co-founded the fashion brand Cécret, made headlines earlier this week for another revelation about Beyoncé’s childhood.
She shared that her eldest daughter, now a 32-time Grammy winner, was bullied as a child.
“She was very shy and she got bullied a bit,” Knowles told Vogue. “But the day she stood up for someone else — she didn’t stand up for herself, she stood up for them — I couldn’t have been more proud of her.”