Mathew Knowles, recently spoke out in an interview addressing a music collaboration with R. Kelly. In a candid conversation with TMZ, the father to Beyoncé and Solange Knowles as well as the former manager of Destiny Child's, said that working with Kelly was a business decision.
"In the music industry, we first look at the professional side, right or wrong, we look at the professional side and not the personal side, and that's pretty continuous with the music industry," the 67-year-old said.
The interviewer asked the father of four, including Nixon Knowles and Koi Knowles from his second marriage, if this attitude is now changing.
"They are not evaluated by their personal business. They are evaluated by their professional greater business," Knowles responded. "I think we are still an industry that evaluates the professional first."
In an interview with Metro UK, the former R&B group's manager reportedly said his ex-wife, Tina Knowles-Lawson, would go to the bathroom with the teenage group mates during recording sessions with the R&B singer.
"The girls were 15, 16. When they went to the bathroom, Tina would go with them," he shared. "They didn't leave our eyes."
Knowles rejected Destiny's Child working with Kelly on their planned collaboration song after he had begun to hear rumors about his sexual abuse allegations.
"I personally rejected the song because I didn't think it was a good song," he said. "Not just because of [his] reputation – this was around 1998, we had just begun to hear some of those things."
In closing out his interview with TMZ, Knowles mentioned the reported sexual abuse Kelly and his brother endured at the hands of their sister doesn't excuse his actions but draws attention to the importance of therapy.
"His brother and himself were sexually abused from the age of 6 to 12, and that makes a tremendous impact on one, as we all know men and women. I don't think we should forget that," he concluded. "Does he get a pass? Absolutely not, but hopefully those that are listening understand the power of therapy and the need of therapy."
Check out the full interview here:
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