Matthew Knowles: Breast Cancer Affects Men!

Beyonce's father Matthew Knowles has breast cancer.

The former manager of Destiny's Child and father of Queen Bey (Beyonce Knowles-Carter) reveals he has breast cancer. The media mogul revealed he is being treated for breast cancer.

He said it all started with a few drops of blood on his shirt and pillow.

I noticed because I wear white T-shirts. I had a dot of blood on my T-shirt.

The first day I was like "Oh, OK, no big deal ... maybe it’s something that just got on my T-shirt." Second day I looked and the same thing and I was like, "Eh ... interesting."

Then on the third day I was like, "What is this? I wonder what this is."

A couple of days passed, and I didn’t have any type of discharge. Then on the fifth day, another, just a tiny drop of blood. I told my wife, I said, "Look at this," And she says, "You know, when I cleaned the sheets the other day I saw a drop of blood on it, and I didn’t pay any attention to it -- but this is kind of weird." I immediately went to my doctor.

The Knowles family. 

When I had the blood on my T-shirt initially I didn’t think it was breast cancer. My mind went a lot of places. My mind went to what medication I was on, because different medications might have caused some sort of discharge ... and then I thought, just because of the risk factor, that it could be breast cancer and I would go get a mammogram.

For context, in 1980 I worked in the medical division of Xerox. I worked there for eight years, selling Xeroradiography, which was at that point the leading modality for breast cancer.

Knowles went to the doctor and got a mammogram and confirmed he did, in fact, have breast cancer. He immediately got surgery and a BRCA test, a genetic test which shows if a person has a higher risk of developing breast cancer.

"I am going to get the second breast removed in January, because I want to do anything I can to reduce the risk," Knowles said.

He also revealed a family history of the disease: his maternal aunt died of breast cancer, as did two cousins. "My kids have a 50- to 70-percent chance of getting the BRCA mutation and breast cancer. That's male or female," he said. "We used to think this was only an issue for women, but this is male or female."