Brian McKnight accuses his ex-wife Julie McKnight and son Brian McKnight Jr. of working with media and bloggers to smear his name in a legal complaint filed Tuesday in a federal court in Atlanta.
The Back At One vocalist, 56, said in the filing that his relatives worked with the New York Post and bloggers Marc Lamont Hill and Tasha K to profit from a ‘malicious character assassination’ at his expense.
The Buffalo, New York-born entertainer, according to legal docs reviewed by the Daily Mail, said in his court filing that the parties involved perpetuated a ‘sensational but false narrative’ that he’d ‘abandoned’ his children.
The Grammy-nominated singer said in court documents reviewed by the Daily Mail that another ‘shockingly dishonest’ accusation was that McKnight wouldn’t tell his late son Niko he loved him prior to his death at 32 from cancer in May of 2025.
Attorneys for the singer said that he has suffered losses to his personal reputation, family life and career due to the mistruths spread by those he named in the legal filing.
The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for Brian McKnight, Julie McKnight and son Brian McKnight Jr. for comment on this story.
Brian McKnight, 56, accuses his ex-wife Julie McKnight and son Brian McKnight Jr. of working with media and bloggers to smear his name. Pictured in Paris in 2019
McKnight said that their ‘relentless and persistent assault upon his character’ led him to take legal remedies.
The defamation lawsuit comes more than four months after the New York Post published an item titled ‘Brian McKnight’s ex-wife blasts singer’s “heartbreaking” choice not to tell dying son Niko “I love you”‘ on December 5, 2025.
McKnight pointed to an August 2019 Instagram post from his son Brian McKnight Jr., which he said in his filing ‘communicated a message … that [he] had abandoned his children.
‘Brian McKnight Jr. declared “words to the effect of: “I can’t imagine abandoning my children, man,”‘ in the social media post,’ McKnight said in his legal complaint.
In his legal filing, McKnight said the involved parties used that social media post as a lodestar to perpetuate falsehoods about him.
‘That statement and all implications that [McKnight] had abandoned his children was false. It was posted publicly on social media, preserved and archived online, and never corrected or retracted.’
McKnight in his legal filing said that ‘despite its falsity,’ the notion put forth by his son that he was ‘as a father who had abandoned or rejected his children’ would become ‘the foundation of a broader narrative’ that’s persisted in the near six years since.
The singer noted that the narrative … clearly and deliberately sought to obscure the fact that the disagreements between [him] and his sons occurred after the latter were adults, as opposed to estrangement between minor children and their father.’
McKnight pictured performing on July 19, 2023 in Washington, DC
Julie McKnight, who had been wed to the musical artist from 1990-2003, was named in the suit
The Back at One singer’s son Brian McKnight Jr. is also named in the lawsuit
McKnight also cited interviews Brian McKnight Jr. and Julie McKnight conducted in late 2025 with Marc Lamont Hill in his legal filing.
He said he was falsely portrayed ‘as a father who refused to tell his dying son that he loved him and who emotionally abandoned his child during the final days of the child’s life.’
McKnight said in his legal filing that his ex-wife and son in the interview ‘reinforced the central accusation that [he] refused to communicate with his son during his final illness and refused to tell him that he loved him.’
The singer is seeking damages in the lawsuit.
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