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We don’t know much about Mathew Knowles’ new wife—his second wife, Gena Knowles. Not only is it because we always associated him with his first nuclear family: Beyoncé, Solange and Tina. But by design. Gena has no desire to be in the spotlight.
But given Knowles’ recent breast cancer diagnosis, Gena felt the need to speak out to lend her voice to breast cancer awareness. It’s an issue that’s affected her long before her husband’s cancer battle. Gena’s mother is a breast cancer survivor and her sister recently passed away from the disease earlier this year.
Recently the couple appeared on the “Tamron Hall Show,” Gena’s first live televised interview, to discuss the topic in their lives.
See what they had to say below.
Tamron: When Mathew told you about the symptoms and ultimately about the diagnosis, how was that?
Gena: It was devastating because I was so tender and raw because my sister had passed away from breast cancer four months prior. It’s still very hard. She died January of this year and she was diagnosed thirteen months prior so she declined rapidly. So yes I was very, very concerned.
Tamron: But you had to be strong for me.
Gena: I had to. I had to be very strong for him and I knew he was very concerned about me. But I knew we had to do it together and we had to do it fast.
Mathew: And to compound that, Gena’s mother is a breast cancer survivor.
Tamron: So this hits so many levels.
Tamron asked Gena about joining the Knowles family who had lived such public lives.
Gena: It was difficult, yes. Just the pressure. Being in the spotlight. I like to live behind the scenes. I’m not on any social media. Not Facebook, Instagram nothing.
Mathew said he wasn’t concerned about Gena adjusting because he knew she could handle the pressure.
Mathew: We don’t care about what people are saying. As long as we can impact others lives in a positive way, that’s what’s important. At the end of the day, it will be just Gena and I.
If you’re wondering what Tina Knowles had to say about Mathew’s diagnosis, she told Entertainment Tonight, “Thank God he got it very early on, and he is going to be fine. I’m claiming it.”
You can watch Mathew and Gena’s full interview in the video below.
