Tina Knowles Recalls Her and Beyoncé’s Early Run-Ins with Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson: What She Wrote in Her Memoir

Despite Destiny’s Child launching into superstardom at the turn of the millennium, the music industry wasn’t always so kind to the girl group behind the scenes, according to Tina Knowles.

In her new Matriarch memoir, the mother of Beyoncé and Solange Knowles opened up about some of the “Say My Name” group’s early run-ins with fellow stars Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson — and how she perceived them getting treated differently behind-the-scenes than the Black women of Destiny’s Child.

Tina, 71, recalled Beyoncé, 43, and groupmates Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin going to Disney World in Orlando, Fla. in 2000 for a show. Simpson, a “nice person” who “was and remains a friend” to the Knowles family, wrote Tina, was also on the lineup.

Backstage, Tina noticed the event organizers treating Destiny’s Child and Simpson quite differently. The Newlyweds star, 44, apparently received a larger dressing room than the quartet, “which [Simpson] thought was strange too,” she wrote.

The House of Deréon founder sensed “an assumption that we were trouble” from the organizers and felt they spoke to Simpson in a “singsong Disney voice” but “were very rigid with the girls, repeating themselves as if they were dumb,” per the book.

One particularly “tense” moment, explained Tina, occurred when her then-husband and the group’s manager Matthew Knowles “saw a Goofy costume backstage and decided to put it on to make the girls laugh” — before he was “scolded” for the playful moment.

That night, Destiny’s Child performed twice. During their first set, Beyoncé threw a towel into the crowd, who “went crazy” for the move. Once she left the stage, however, police threatened to not only end the second show if she threw anything off stage but have her arrested, Tina recalled.

“For the next performance, the police officers had the nerve to stand onstage while they performed,” wrote Tina, who felt “pissed off.”

Elsewhere in Matriarch, she remembered Matthew informing her Sony (where Destiny’s Child was signed at the time) apparently no longer wanted her making outfits for the group as their second album, The Writing’s on the Wall, soared up the charts.

Executives allegedly expressed feeling as though Destiny’s Child would “never be as popular” as pop acts like Spears, 43, Simpson and Christina Aguilera with Tina “limiting them” when it came to fashion. She recalled Matthew saying they claimed the group’s style was “too Texas” and described their look as “Motown.”

“Mathew and I both knew what this was code for. They were too Black, and any kind of Black was too Black. But the girls are Black,” wrote Tina.

According to Tina, Matthew was told Destiny’s Child should dress more like Spears and that their “homemade clothes” were “holding them back.” He stood up for her in the meeting and later told Sony executives that the group “is keeping the f—— lights on in here.”

Following the label’s alleged attempt to let Tina go from the Destiny’s Child team, they ran into Spears backstage at one of the group’s shows in Germany — and she unknowingly helped validate Tina’s abilities as their stylist.

She wrote, “Now, in Germany, Britney talked about loving the girls’ outfits. ‘One day, Miss Tina, you’ve please got to do something for me.'”

Matriarch is out now.

PEOPLE’s Beyoncé special edition is available at newsstands and Amazon now.

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