Sharon Stone raised some eyebrows when she asked on Instagram if she was related to singer Beyonce Knowles’ mother, Tina Lawson. Stone asked the question in public, responding to a photo Viola Davis shared on Jan. 4 to mark Lawson’s 67th birthday. After Stone’s comments went viral, the Oscar nominee defended herself, explaining that she has met relatives of color in the past and she did not realize some would find her comments offensive.
Davis shared a photo of Lawson on Jan. 4, writing how she continues to “inspire and amaze me.” Stone later posted a trio of comments on the post that surprised many observers. “R we related? That’s my mom’s maiden name,” Stone wrote. In another comment, she simply wrote “Lawson.” In the third comment, she said her “grandfather Lawson had other families.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
View this post on Instagram
The next day, the Instagram page Comments By Celebs shared a screenshot of Stone’s comments. “I wasn’t joking I have met some relatives of color in the past,” Stone wrote in response. “I didn’t realize this was Beyoncé’s mom, But, that’s nice. I thought we kind of looked alike and i didn’t know that saying so would be offensive…. to some. Pardon my naïveté. I hear that Lawson is her second husband’s name. It was my depression born, hillbilly mother’s name. She btw was a child laborer who was a live-in maid from the age of nine. We don’t know each other. We may be related; I love u either way.”
Stone’s comment drew several responses, with some supporting her and others not taking her explanation. “What does your mother’s struggle have anything to do with this? Is that supposed to make you more relatable to black ppl?” one person wrote, referring to Stone’s decision to include an anecdote about her mother. “It’s not exactly a rare name,” another wrote. On the other side, someone bluntly said Stone did not have to explain herself. “F— em. You don’t have to explain s— to these idiots,” the fan wrote.
Lawson was born Celestine Ann Beyonce in Galveston, Texas, and was married to Beyonce and Solange Knowles’ father, Matthew Knowles, from 1980 to 2011. In 2015, she married actor Richard Lawson, who is best known for his roles in Poltergeist and the original V miniseries. As for Stone, 62, she was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and her parents were Dorothy and Joseph Stone. Her mother’s maiden name is Lawson.
Stone is an Oscar-nominated actress thanks to her role in Martin Scorsese’s Casino. She recently worked with Scorsese again on the Netflix film Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. She also stars in Netflix’s Ratched, a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest prequel series.
