[1913CrimsonQT]

BEYONCE'S DAD BLOWS MILLIONS ON DRUGS & HOOKERS

POP sensation Beyonce Knowles and the rest of Destiny's Child are reeling from a lawsuit charging that their manager, Beyonce's dad Mathew, squandered $32 million on cocaine and sex parties with prostitutes.

And while Mathew Knowles denies misappropriating millions, the married man admits to Star in a startling exclusive interview that he was a sex and drug addict who has cheated on his wife repeatedly!

"Beyonce is shocked and embarrassed," says a source close to Destiny's Child. "She wonders how her father could betray the family like this.

"She is especially heartbroken for her mother, Tina, who has been humiliated by the charges in the lawsuit."

But incredibly, Beyonce's shameless dad tells Star he doesn't feel bad about any of the drugging or carousing with women that he's done.

"I'm not proud of nor am I ashamed of this stuff," says Knowles, 50.

"My wife Tina and I had some real problems with our marriage and I was having some affairs at the time. I went to a treatment facility in 1992 and they didn't have a real definition for my marital infidelities. But if you did a little alcohol or drugs it was all lumped together as substance abuse related.

"In 1998, when I was treated a second time, they had a more defined definition of sex addiction, but sex addiction has such a broad range. My treatment was regarding my continued extramarital affairs."

The sordid scandal has erupted just as beautiful Beyonce was poised to launch a solo career. After leading singing partners Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams to the top of the charts with hits like Survivor and Bootylicious and making Destiny's Child the world's best-selling girl group, Beyonce is breaking into movies. She makes her big-screen debut opposite Mike Myers in Goldmember, the hotly anticipated new Austin Powers movie.

"The last thing she needs right now is for these horrible revelations to come out in public," says the close source.

According to the shocking lawsuit filed by Armon Tillman, 21, and his brother Chris, 18, the two sons of the group's late co-manager, Andretta Tillman, Beyonce's dad took money that should have gone to them and spent it on drugs and wild parties with hookers.

"Mathew Knowles failed to inform Ms. Tillman that he had uncontrollable addictions to at least cocaine and extramarital sexual activities, which he could not control" and these "impeded his ability" to properly manage the group, the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit claims Tillman was key to Destiny's Child signing a multimillion-dollar deal with Sony Music Entertainment, but Knowles and the group failed to live up to its contract with Tillman's heirs, after she died of lupus in 1997.

Instead of "investing prudently" Knowles "squandered" an estimated $32 million of the group's profits on drugs and prostitutes "by engaging in ... unproductive, unreasonable and/or improper acts," the sons claim.

According to the court documents, in addition to buying and snorting cocaine, Beyonce's dad is also accused of a shopping list of shocking sex-related acts including "solicitation and/or marketing of prostitutes" and arranging "sex parties."

Although Knowles admits past affairs, his wife Tina defiantly dismissed the sordid charges that he spent millions on hookers and cocaine as "all lies."

She told Star: "He'd be dead if he spent $32 million on drugs and sex."

Tina, who works as the group's stylist and recently authored the book Destiny's Style, added: "My husband works 16 hours a day. I don't know when he'd have the time for all this nonsense they're claiming.

"And Beyonce knows in her heart her father hasn't done the terrible things he's accused of doing."

But a source confides that heartbroken Beyonce doesn't know what to think.

"She loves him and she doesn't want to believe that he could have betrayed her, the family and the other girls in the group," the source says. "Beyonce should be on top of the world right now. Instead, her dad has dragged her into an embarrassing and humiliating scandal."