Beyoncé childhood home burns on Christmas
Beyoncé’s childhood home was consumed by a Christmas Day fire. Firefighters in Houston responded to a raging blaze on the 2400 block of Rosedale St. at around 2 a.m., according to local station KIAH.
They reportedly took 10 minutes to largely tamp down the flames after needing only three minutes to arrive on the scene. The couple who lives in the house and their two children were home at the time, but uninjured.
What caused the two-story home to catch fire was not immediately clear. The holiday season helps make December the leading month for residential fires in the U.S., according to the National Fire Protection Association.
The Knowles family, whose eldest daughter Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter grew up to be an international pop star and the winningest artist in Grammy history, paid $64,000 for the Houston home in 1981, according to TMZ. They left the three-bedroom house in 1986 after Beyoncé’s sibling, Solange Piaget Knowles, also a Grammy-winning recording artist, came along in 1986.
The home features a spiral staircase, three bathrooms and an office. TMZ said a buyer paid $310,000 for the 8,640-square-foot lot next to the house last year.
Beyoncé performed in Houston twice in September as she wound down her 39-city Renaissance World Tour, which grossed $579 million. The “Crazy in Love” singer broke the record for the most wins ever by a single honoree at this year’s Grammy Awards, earning her 32nd gramophone trophy.
“I had a great childhood in Houston!” Beyoncé said in a 2019 article promoting tourism in the nation’s fourth-largest city. “You can buy a great home in a price range to fit your income.”
The 42-year-old superstar said the first thing she tells people when speaking about her hometown is that Houston is a city inhabited by polite Southerners rather than the rural environment sometimes depicted in films.
“Some of the best moments of my life took place there,” she added. “This will always be home to me!”