Beyoncé may be the most-awarded artist in Grammy history, but even the pop icon’s mom was caught a bit off-guard by that big win at the 2025 ceremony earlier this month.
Appearing on “The Jennifer Hudson Show” Monday, Tina Knowles admitted she “just was not expecting” Beyoncé to finally secure the Grammy for Album of the Year for “Cowboy Carter” after four previous nominations in that category.
“I was really, really shocked,” Knowles said. “In fact, I sat there for a second and didn’t even believe it was true.”
Alluding to Beyoncé’s own viral reaction to her Best Country Album win, she added, “I was sitting there with my granddaughter Rumi and my grandson Sir, and for a second there, we were just sitting there and then, when she did this, I said, ‘It’s real!’ I couldn’t believe it. It’s been so many times where I thought that would happen, and it didn’t.”
Catch a clip of Tina Knowles’ “Jennifer Hudson Show” interview below.
Beyoncé broke the record for the most Grammy wins by a single artist in 2023 with her dance-oriented album “Renaissance.” She added three more to that tally at the 2025 Grammys: Best Country Duo/Group Performance for her duet with Miley Cyrus, “II Most Wanted,” and Best Country Album and Album of the Year for “Cowboy Carter.”
But her Album of the Year win was, by all accounts, the most significant. For many, her four losses in that category ― for 2008’s “I Am… Sasha Fierce,” 2013’s “Beyoncé,” 2016’s “Lemonade” and 2022’s “Renaissance” ― became indicative of the ways in which the Grammys have historically sidelined Black female artists.
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Elsewhere in her chat with Hudson, Knowles gushed over her eldest granddaughter, Blue Ivy Carter, who escorted Beyoncé to the stage to accept the award for Album of the Year.
“It was funny because then they show Blue … and Beyoncé is sitting like this and Blue’s saying, ‘Get up,’” she quipped. “They call her the manager. She’s a bossy little Capricorn, like her grandma.”
