Celebrity
Beyoncé’s Renaissance Movie Doesn’t Do The Destiny’s Child Reunion Justice
The Beyhive needs to know how it all went down.
Spoilers ahead for Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé. Beyoncé’s acclaimed Renaissance movie contains something even more seismic than her nearly three-hour show or even Blue Ivy Carter’s dancing skills. The Renaissance film includes a Destiny’s Child reunion with both past and more recent members — but it’s not nearly enough.
While performing shows in her hometown of Houston, Beyoncé reunited with current Destiny’s Child singers Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, plus past members LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett.
However, the scene only lasts about ten seconds, as part of a montage where Bey visits her school and the locales she frequented as a kid in Houston, and you cannot hear what the ladies discuss.
This is an injustice, given the fraught history between all members. As the New York Times stated in their review, “I would have watched three more hours of that summit alone!”
Luckett & Roberson’s DC History
Destiny’s Child was originally Beyoncé, Rowland, Luckett, and Roberson, who were all managed by Bey’s father Mathew Knowles.
After the 1999 release of their sophomore album The Writing’s On the Wall, Luckett and Roberson attempted to split from Knowles, claiming that he showed favoritism to the other two members and refused to share financial information, but did not intend to leave the group.
They were eventually replaced with Williams and Farrah Franklin, who were introduced in the iconic “Say My Name” video (even though the previous members’ vocals were still present in the song).
Luckett and Roberson eventually filed a lawsuit against both Knowles and their former bandmates, which played out in the press until the case was settled in 2002.
Franklin quit the group just a few months after joining, leaving Destiny’s Child as the trio that all generations know and love.
Every time the girl group has reunited since their 2006 split, like at Beyoncé’s 2013 Super Bowl Halftime Show and historic 2018 Coachella performance, it’s been the now-classic iteration of Bey, Rowland, and Williams, who have stayed close friends both on and offstage for the past two decades.
Why The DC Reunion Deserved Better
While it’s not known what led to their great reunion, the modern Destiny’s Child trio had not publicly interacted with previous members at all due to their history until Beyoncé invited Luckett and Roberson to her Renaissance Tour show.
In the black-and-white clip, Bey embraces Roberson and Rowland hugs Luckett in a dressing room backstage as Williams lovingly looks on, with the singer explaining in a voiceover that it was the first time they had all been in the same room in many years. “It was like a new birth for us, and a lot of healing,” she said.
The emotions weren’t fleeting, as Luckett and Roberson also made appearances at the Renaissance premiere on Nov. 25, along with Rowland and Williams, marking their second reunion in less than a year.
A moment that healed over two decades of wounds was deserving of more than ten seconds, which Beyoncé could fix by giving the Beyhive a separate documentary (or a Destiny’s Child reunion tour).
