Beyonce Misses Father's Wedding, Had 'Previous Engagements'
Singer Beyonce reportedly did not attend her father Mathew Knowles' wedding to his longtime girlfriend, to Gena Avery, and her absence has fueled rumors of a strained relationship.
On June 30 Matthew, who divorced Beyonce's mother Tina in 2011, married Avery, a former model, in an intimate ceremony in Houston, TX. Beyonce, 31, and her sister Solange, 26, did not attending, according to TMZ.com.
"Unfortunately, Beyonce and Solange had previous engagements which made it impossible for them to attend," Matthew told TMZ.com.
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In 2010 Matthew fathered a love child with Alexsandra Wright, a woman 20 years his junior, just months after reports of an extramarital affair surfaced. Around the same time Matthew was mutually released as Beyonce's manager "on a business level," despite having worked in the role for more than two decades. Critics began questioning whether the love child scandal influenced the business decision, according to The New York Post.
"My soul has been tarnished," Beyonce declared in her "Life Is But a Dream" documentary upon her decision to part ways professionally with her father.
"My father taught me so much about being a businesswoman. And I'm understanding him a lot now ... A lot of the crazy things he did were necessary," she says during another segment.
Tina, 59, who filed for divorce from Matthew in 2009, and Beyonce have always maintained a close bond and the singer was reportedly devastated after Matthew, 62, was accused of having an 18-months long affair with Wright, 38, during his 31-year marriage to Tina.
"Beyonce was horrified to find out her dad cheated on her mom. She always looked up to him, and she is very close to her mom, so this has hit her really hard," a source had told the New York Post ahead of Matthew's termination.
"She is refusing to speak to him, which is making things difficult where it comes to managing her career. Some people at Columbia [records] now think it would be better to move him aside," the source continued.
