The Sunday Mail
MATHEW Knowles, the father of superstar singer Beyonce, has revealed he has breast cancer. Knowles, 67, sat down with Michael Strahan to speak about his diagnosis. Strahan asked Knowles, who is also the father of Grammy-winning singer Solange Knowles, how he broke the news to his family.
Knowles’ revelation coincides with the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which takes place every October around the globe. Mathew Knowles managed Beyonce’s music career from teenage stardom as a member of Destiny’s Child through to her hugely successful solo career until 2011. Beyonce ended her working relationship with her father in the lead-up to her fourth solo studio album, “4”.
“I have only parted ways with my father on a business level,” Beyonce said at the time.
“He is my father for life and I love my dad dearly. I am grateful for everything he has taught me . . . I grew up watching both he and my mother manage and own their own businesses. They were hardworking entrepreneurs and I will continue to follow in their footsteps.”
Beyonce’s father and mother Tina Knowles separated in 2009 and finalised their divorce in 2011. Mathew Knowles married his second wife, Gena Charmaine Avery, in 2013.
Tina Knowles remarried in 2015, tying the knot with actor Richard Lawson, father of “Pretty Little Liars” star Bianca Lawson. Beyonce’s father’s breast cancer diagnosis is very rare. According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, less than one percent of all breast cancer cases are among men.
The American Cancer Society, meanwhile, says that the lifetime risk of men getting breast cancer is about one in 833.
Breast cancer is 100 times less likely to develop in white men than white women, but 70 times less likely to develop in black men than black women. The American Cancer Society says that the long-term prognosis for black men with cancer tends to be worse than for their white counterparts. The same is true for black women.
Some 2 670 cases of invasive male breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in 2019, according to the organisation. An estimated 500 men will die from breast cancer this year. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that men with breast cancer had a higher mortality rate than women with the disease. — Newsweek.
