Beyoncé’s father, Mathew Knowles, has revealed his breast cancer diagnosis, saying that Beyoncé and Solange were tested for the mutated BRCA2 gene after he told them. Knowles spoke about his diagnosis on Good Morning America to mark the start of Breast Cancer Awareness month.
‘The first call was to my family,’ the music manager said of his shock diagnosis, ‘that was the very first call.
'Because this is genetics. It means my kids have a higher chance - a higher risk. It also means my grandkids are a high risk,' he told interviewer Michael Strahan. 'They handled it like they should. They [Solange and Beyoncé] went and got the test.’
He said he immediately went to the doctors when he a noticed a small recurring dot of blood on his shirts. ‘When I had blood on my T-shirt, I didn't immediately think it was breast cancer. My mind went to a lot of places,’ he explained. A mammogram confirmed it was cancer, and Knowles had surgery in July.
He added how the diagnosis and surgery have changed his perspective on life. 'I stopped drinking,' he said. 'I wanted to just have a clean bill of health. Exercise. Meditate. Things that used to be important to me aren't important now. I just look at the world differently.'
Breast cancer is rare in men – in the UK in 2017, 319 men were diagnosed, compared with around 46,000 women, according to the Office for National Statistics.
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