Tina Knowles, Ashley Graham Speak Out at Entertainment Marketing Summit

In the latest episode of the “Daily Variety” podcast, entrepreneurs Tina Knowles and Ashley Graham discuss their pioneering journeys in establishing influential media and retail brands. Their insights are drawn from a series of discussions that took place at Variety‘s annual Entertainment Marketing Summit.

This full-day event in Beverly Hills included sessions with leading industry figures such as marketers, brand managers, creators, talent representatives, ad sales executives, and media buyers. Videos of all the sessions are available for viewing here.

Listen to today’s “Daily Variety” podcast here:

In a discussion with Variety‘s senior entertainment writer Angelique Jackson, Tina Knowles shared memories of her early role in styling Destiny’s Child, the iconic group that propelled her daughter Beyoncé to international fame.

“I was doing everything out of necessity. It wasn’t because and I didn’t know I was producing, I didn’t know I was creative director, and that term wasn’t even a thing then. I was just doing what needed to be done, and a lot of times never given credit for it. And I was OK with that. I actually liked hiding and being in the background,” Knowles said. “And I realized when I look back on it that I was literally this country woman with this big hair from Texas with this thick accent. And I would go into a TV show like ‘The Tonight Show’ and have to fight with the lighting director. And they’d be like, ‘Who? This is somebody’s mama, get her out of here! And they didn’t take me seriously. But I would be a pest. And I would say, I’m sorry, but you got four Black girls, you need more light on them. And they’d be like, ‘Who are you to tell me about lighting?’ But I was doing all these things and I didn’t feel enough. I guess I didn’t feel like I was professionally trained, so I would just be OK with somebody kind of pushing me to the side.”

Ashley Graham, a trailblazing supermodel for plus-size women, together with her UTA agent Natasha Bolouki, spoke with Jennifer Maas, Variety‘s senior business writer, about her venture into designing apparel lines for JC Penney. Additionally, Graham recounted how she managed to perform as Roxie Hart in the Broadway production of Chicago for six weeks, despite having no prior experience in singing or dancing.

“Now, friends — I don’t sing, I don’t act, and I definitely don’t dance. But for some reason, I had it in my head that this was a goal of mine. And I’m a big manifester. I have the yellow pad every year. I’m writing my three or four pages and we’re getting it done. We’re putting it on the mirror and the walls. And when I first met Natasha and the whole team, they asked me what was the biggest dream I had that maybe hadn’t come true yet? And that was one of them. I kid you not,” Graham said.

“Two months later, ‘Chicago’ calls and they’re like, ‘We want you to come in for an audition.’ I was not ready. I had no idea what I was doing. I spent my own money and I went and got the best music teacher, dance teacher, acting teacher. I nailed the audition. I was Roxie Hart in ‘Chicago’ for six weeks on Broadway, and UTA really helped me and made that happen,” she said. “And what that did for me is it made me say, I need to dream bigger. Because if something like that, where I’m not born with the skill set and I have to go and get trained for it, that means there’s a lot of training that could be happening for anything that I really want.”

(Pictured top: Tina Knowles)

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