Tina Knowles Shares a Rare Photo of Beyoncé at Home with Her Three Kids

Beyoncé may be one of the most famous women in the world, but, when it comes to her family, she’s pretty private. (Remember when it wasn’t even fully confirmed that Beyoncé and Jay-Z were a couple, even after they were married? Yeah.) Bey and Jay are the parents of three—Blue Ivy, who has been joining her mother onstage for much of the Renaissance World Tour, and twins Rumi and Sir—and, thanks to Beyoncé’s mom, Tina Knowles, we’re getting a rare glimpse at all three kids as the family celebrated Bey’s forty-second birthday this week.

In the throwback photo, Rumi and Sir (who are six now) are toddlers, and Sir sits on the far side of a bench as Rumi and Blue help Beyoncé blow out her birthday candles. “Screaming Happy Birthday to my daughter, my best friend, my confidant,” Knowles captioned the photo on Instagram. “I thank God, for choosing me to be the vessel in which you traveled to get to this world. You are such rare and precious gift to the world not only as a genius entertainer. You are a gift because of your beautiful generous heart, the love you give. The grace you give, the wisdom that you show. I could go on, and on but every word is true you deserve to have the happiest day ever because you give your heart and soul to the world happy birthday my firstborn snoogams.”

While Beyoncé and Jay-Z have opted to keep their kids’ private lives private, they have featured in their parents’ music, with Blue Ivy breaking a Guinness World Record for being the youngest person to have a charted song on any Billboard chart for Jay-Z’s “Glory,” released when she was two days old (casual). In 2020, she was featured on Beyoncé’s “Brown Skin Girl,” and Blue won another Guinness World Record for being the youngest individually credited Grammy Award winner (the song won a Grammy for Best Music Video). For most of her mom’s tour this summer, Blue danced to the songs “My Power” and “Black Parade.”

But Beyoncé and Jay-Z don’t push their kids into superstardom like they have achieved. “Feeling loved is the most important thing a child needs, you know?” Jay-Z told The Sunday Times. “Not, ‘Here’s this business that I’m going to hand over to you, that I’m creating for you.’ What if my child doesn’t want to be in music or sports? I have no idea, right? But as long as your child feels supported, and feels loved, I think anything is possible.” 

Beyoncé’s actual birthday was Monday, which she celebrated at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, performing the third of three L.A. shows on the Renaissance World Tour, which concludes on October 1 (say it isn’t so!). Per Page Six, Beyoncé told the celebrity-packed crowd “My soul is full. I’m so thankful. I’m trying not to cry. I’m thankful to be alive. I’m thankful to be onstage. I’m thankful to look out and see your faces. I’m thankful to be able to provide a safe space for all of y’all. I’m thankful for music, for the ability to heal myself through music, which then heals all of you. I’m thankful that we all have the ability to make lemonade out of our lemons. I thank you that I’m here at f—king 42. I’m grateful for joy, and I thank God.”