Beyoncé’s dad claims that if she wasn’t ‘light-skinned’ she wouldn’t be as successful as she is right now

Beyoncé’s dad and former manager Matthew Knowles has claimed that the celebrated musician would not be as successful as she is right now had she been a little darker.

He said during a frank interview that black singers are more likely to be played on the radio and enjoy success if they have a paler complexion.

During an interview with Ebony magazine, he said: "When it comes to black females, who are the people who get their music played on pop radio? Mariah Carey, Rihanna, the female rapper Nicki Minaj, my kids, and what do they all have in common?"

The interviewer asked if it was that they had lighter skin, and Matthew responded: "Do you think that's an accident?"

Discussing his new memoir Racism: From the Eyes of a Child, he said: "I used to date mainly white women or very high-complexion black women that looked white.

"I actually thought when I met Tina (Beyoncé’s mom ), my former wife, that she was white. Later I found out that she wasn't, and she was actually very much in-tune with her blackness. Discussing his new memoir Racism: From the Eyes of a Child, he said: "I used to date mainly white women or very high-complexion black women that looked white.

He said that his own mother used derogatory terms about dark-skinned women and encouraged him to date white women.

"I had been conditioned from childhood. With eroticised rage, there was actual rage in me as a black man, and I saw the white females as a way, subconsciously, as getting even or getting back."

He said he later learned to question those beliefs.