Mathew Knowles is claiming Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland were harassed by two members of Jagged Edge during their early Destiny’s Child days.
Knowles sat down with VladTV to promote his new book Destiny’s Child: The Untold Story. During the interview, which was published on Tuesday, Knowles discusses what he says led to him kicking the boy group off the tour bus and later on, to the replacement of LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson.
Managing both Jagged Edge and Destiny’s Child, Knowles put the two groups on a tour bus together while they were opening up for Jon B. He now calls the decision to bunk the two groups together “poor.”
“Now remember, the girls were minors, they’re minors. They’re 16 years-old. The guys are 21, 22 years old. I have a fiduciary duty with minors by the law,” Knowles said. “I got a call from Kelly and Beyoncé…saying that they were constantly being harassed by two members of Jagged Edge and I couldn’t have that.”
When asked how he handled the situation as a father of one of the members, he replied: “we won’t talk about that on camera.”
He claims the harassment led to him having to kick the men off the tour bus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Knowles never clarifies which members he is referring to.
“That began all of this drama,” he said.
The drama he’s referring to is the disbanding of the original Destiny's Child group with Roberson and Luckett being replaced.
According to Destiny’s Child’s former manager, he got a call from an attorney claiming he would no longer be managing the two members and the women would be searching for a new manager. Knowles said the ultimate decision to bring in Michelle Williams and let go of the other two original members was up to the record label.
Although the businessman claims the harassment led to the change of singers, members of Jagged Edge as well as Roberson and Luckett, claim a different story.
It is now known that Jagged Edge twins, Brandon and Brian Casey dated Luckett and Roberson, which was revealed in an episode of Unsung.
In the episode, Roberson claims Luckett’s mom wanted to ride on the bus, but Knowles was not having it.
“We were somewhere in Louisiana and LeToya’s mother, Ms. Pam we called her, was going to ride on the bus with us and our management was like ‘if Pam gets on that bus, then y’all are gonna lose your job,'" said Roberson. “Jagged Edge stood up for Ms. Pam because it’s wrong. You can’t just leave this girl’s mother.”
The Casey twins back the story, saying they stood up for the two Destiny’s Child members as well as Ms. Pam.
“Hell no. You’re not going to kick someone’s mother off the bus like that. Like no,” Brandon said of the situation. “We were asked to leave. We got kicked off the bus. They ended up kicking us off and the mom.”
“We were real people and he didn’t like that. I think it was as simple as that,” said Brian.
Neither of the former groups has commented on the harassment claims.
