Tina Knowles celebrates Beyoncé’s 45th birthday with a look back at their first bond

Sharing a hospital photo from the day Beyoncé was born, Knowles wrote about the “strong” connection they formed as mother and daughter.

Tina Knowles is celebrating Beyoncé’s 45th birthday with an intimate photo from the day her daughter was born.

Knowles shared the hospital photo on Instagram Friday, showing herself holding newborn Beyoncé on Sept. 4, 1981. In the caption, she recalled that labor took nine hours and said the picture captured the first time mother and daughter made eye contact.

“Reminiscing on this day 45 years ago. You took nine hours to come. I am exhausted in this photo, but the happiest I’ve ever been in my life up to this point on this day, Sept 4th, 1981. We are making our first eye contact. The connection is so strong and so beautiful and so powerful,” she shared.

She described herself as exhausted but happier than she had ever been and said the connection they formed in that moment has never been broken.

Knowles focused much of the message on Beyoncé’s character rather than her career. She wrote that the quality she loves most about her daughter is her “huge heart,” praising her for continuing to create, love and lift up others despite what she described as the “sometimes terrible noise” surrounding her.

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The tribute also included a characteristically blunt nod to the singer’s private nature. Knowles praised Beyoncé for working hard, making history, “minding your own damn business” and living her life fully before ending the post with a simple birthday declaration of love.

“Creating, loving, lifting up others constantly, making history, using that genius mind, working your butt off, minding your own damn business, and living your life to the fullest. Happy Birthday, I love you,” she posted.

Beyoncé was born in Houston on Sept. 4, 1981, and turns 45 on Friday. Her birthday also marks 20 years since the release of “B’Day,” her second solo studio album, which originally arrived on Sept. 4, 2006.

The new tribute is not the first time Knowles has used Beyoncé’s birthday to revisit her earliest memories of motherhood. In 2018, she posted a photo of Beyoncé at four months old and wrote about the overwhelming pride and love she felt for her firstborn.

This time, Knowles went back even further, sharing the moment when that bond began. As fans celebrate around the world, she framed Beyoncé’s 45th birthday around the person she says her daughter has remained beneath decades of fame.