We first met Kelly Rowland in the ’90s when she joined Destiny’s Child. Their debut album came out in 1998, and after three more albums, the group members went their separate ways to focus on solo projects. Kelly released her solo album, Simply Deep, in 2002. One of the standout tracks, “Dilemma,” featuring Nelly, was a massive hit and earned Kelly her first Grammy Award as a solo artist. Destiny’s Child came back together in 2004 for their final album, Destiny Fulfilled, and their last tour.
Since then, this mother of two has been busy, releasing three more studio albums, collaborating with other artists, and appearing in several TV shows and made-for-TV movies. She even dropped an EP called “K” in 2021. Her career might seem steady, but behind the scenes, she has faced some serious challenges.
This story is about the disrespect she faced from the music industry, rocky personal relationships, and ongoing turmoil that constantly pulls her away from her true passion. Before we get started, treat yourself to a snack from rrgsnacks.com. Whether it’s sea salt caramel popcorn, brisket beef jerky, or gummy sour bears, their online concession stand has something for everyone and tons of five-star reviews.
In an interview with Clay Kane on SiriusXM, Kelly’s former manager, Matthew Knowles, shared that while his daughter Beyoncé’s career benefited from lighter skin, Kelly’s did not. He said, “In the music industry, there’s still segregation. Programmers, especially at pop radio, have a specific image of what beauty looks like.”
“Did you ever think about using a bleaching cream?”
“I never actually thought, ‘I want to use a bleaching cream.’ It was more like, ‘I just want to be Mariah’s shade.'”
Kelly confirmed to today.com that some companies told her she was too dark for certain campaigns, making her wonder, “If I’m darker, does that mean I won’t get the same opportunities?” For years, she avoided looking at herself in the mirror, made worse by public comments about her appearance. It took her a while to see her own beauty and realize that people’s negative remarks reflected their insecurities. She told Vice Magazine, “You have to remember how much people project. You can’t let the world define you, or you’ll internalize its insecurities.”
Kelly also admitted she struggled to step out of Beyoncé’s shadow. During a video chat with The Voice Australia contestant Chris Sebastian, she said, “I used to torture myself thinking, ‘I can’t wear this dress because they’ll say it’s like B’s,’ or ‘I can’t have a song like that because it sounds too much like B’s. They’re going to compare me anyway.'”
Some argue that Matthew Knowles is partly to blame. In a 2022 interview on Drink Champs, R&B singer Tank said Destiny’s Child was designed to make Beyoncé the star. “Kelly Rowland is one of the most talented women I’ve ever worked with. I never realized because I gave all the credit to Beyoncé. That’s how Destiny’s Child was structured.”
Kelly Rowland dropped her second solo album, Ms. Kelly, in 2007 through Columbia Records, a branch of Sony Music Entertainment. The singles “Like This” and “Comeback” did okay, but nothing spectacular. Then in 2009, she hit it big internationally with David Guetta’s track “When Love Takes Over.” Despite her individual success and her history with Destiny’s Child, things took a surprising turn when Columbia Records decided to drop her, claiming she wasn’t “commercially viable” anymore. In an interview with Vogue Magazine, Kelly opened up about how hard that was, saying, “It felt like they were telling me I had no more worth. It was the toughest thing I’ve ever gone through.”
Around the same time, in 2009, Kelly also ended her professional relationship with Matthew Knowles, her manager and someone she saw as a father figure. She told Entertainment Weekly that moving on was necessary for her and her fans. Matthew was later replaced by Tim Weatherspoon, who Kelly eventually married.
In 2011, Kelly released her album Here I Am on Universal Motown, but the label got absorbed by Republic Records. More problems emerged when Kelly became a judge on The X Factor in its third season. Her team urged the label to drop a new single to take advantage of the show’s 8 million weekly viewers, but the label didn’t go for it. Kelly released “Kisses Down Low” in February 2013, and it went gold. However, her fourth album, Talk a Good Game, released four months later, didn’t keep up the momentum. Kelly believes that if the label had released the album when she started on The X Factor, it would have done better. Feeling unheard and frustrated, Kelly asked to be released from her contract.
Her son, Titan, was born in November 2014, but just a month later, her mother, Doris Rowland Garrison, passed away at 66. In 2017, Kelly decided it was finally time to record a new album. She managed to finish a few songs and was working on one more about her mom. She told Vogue, “The record about my mother, I have yet to put into words, and it will be the hardest record I will ever write.” As time went on and the album didn’t come together, Kelly told The Cut that the song about her mom was still unfinished. She added, “It’s the hardest story of my life because it’s the thing that I once thought was just so ugly.” Kelly described her relationship with her mom as very tumultuous, revealing she spent much of her childhood at the Knowles’ house. She’s so close with Tina Knowles that Tina walked her down the aisle at her wedding and was there for Titan’s birth, considering Tina as her children’s grandmother.
Kelly hasn’t shared much about what caused the rift with her mom or what their relationship was like in her mom’s final years. However, she did mention to The Cut that she plans to reveal more through the song’s lyrics. As of now, the song hasn’t been released.
While grieving her mother’s loss, Kelly’s emotions turned to her father, Christopher Lovett. She told Vogue she last saw him when she was seven or eight years old. Although her husband had spoken to him on the phone, she was too nervous to have a conversation with him. According to Today.com, her dad tried to reconnect with her several times over the years, even buying tickets to Destiny’s Child concerts, only to be turned away. Kelly admitted she had given her security team strict instructions not to let him backstage. She reflected, “I didn’t want to deal with that at the time, and now that I think about it, I’m like, ‘Ah, that must have felt terrible.'”
In an interview with Rolling Out Magazine, she shared that she talked with Jay-Z about the possibility of reconnecting with her dad. Jay-Z told her, “Love is all about risk. You gotta decide if you’re gonna jump.” That conversation gave her the push she needed to finally ask her dad why he was never involved in her life. They met at a hotel in Atlanta, where he opened up about his own life, his relationship with his father, and even his grandfather. She felt a huge weight lift off her shoulders as she practiced forgiveness.