*In the latest chapter of a sad and sordid situation between Brian McKnight and his children with first wife, Julie, their son Brian McKnight Jr. declared recently that he is refusing his father’s suggestion that he change his name.
McKnight and his current wife had a baby boy in January that he also named Brian. It’s the latest slight in the ongoing family drama. Last month, the children from McKnight’s first marriage accused him of abandonment in a series of social media posts. The singer denied the claims in an Instagram video and further stated that his estrangement from his eldest kids – Brian Jr., Briana, Niko and Jack – is “mutual.”
“I never abandoned anyone,” he said in the IG video. “Our estrangement was mutual. But those posts made any roads towards reconciliation and acknowledging them a dead issue. And I changed my will the next day.”
In a specific jab at McKnight Jr., the crooner further stated: “I’ve spent the last 30-plus years building a recognized, respectable name. And ironically, there are still people out there who are trying to smear my name while still carrying it, hoping to use it for their own benefit.”
McKnight’s current wife, Dr. Leilani Malia Mendoza, just gave birth in January to Brian Kanoa Makoa, despite the singer already having a Brian Jr.
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In his Instagram video, McKnight said of having two juniors: “I make absolutely no apologies for naming my infant son Brian. I want him and the world to know that he is the one who is my true legacy. So I’ll be over here continuing to love and protect my wife, and our children, as we continue to love our life.”
In response, McKnight Jr. said in his Instagram story that he will not change his name, and doing so would send the wrong message to his own son, who is named Brian McKnight III.
Watch below:
Meanwhile, McKnight’s IG video came on the heels of a settled lawsuit brought by Briana, who claimed he “maliciously defamed” her on social media by lying about her having an affair with her own cousin.
According to Radar Online, Briana sued McKnight in 2020, accusing him of being motivated by “animosity” when he told his followers that “she had some years earlier, and while a minor, engaged in sexual relations with an older cousin.” Briana claimed the issue started in 2019 when she decided to share “aspects of her perceptions of growing up with an unnamed absent father on her personal Instagram page.”
Though she allegedly didn’t disclose the identity of her famous father, McKnight responded by “publicly stating that Briana was a promiscuous and incestuous minor, and thereby (he hoped) undermining Briana’s credibility regarding a post that did not even identify him,” Briana stated in her lawsuit.
His post continued: “And unfortunately along the way, a couple of years ago I caught wind that there was an older cousin who was above 18 who was quite possibly having sex with her.” He also reportedly alleged that Briana’s mother, who he’d had an affair with while married to Julie, “only had a child with” him “for money in the first place.”
Briana denied her father’s allegations in her lawsuit, which stated: “Briana had never engaged in any sexual contact of any kind with any relative of any age while a minor or otherwise.”
McKnight denied the allegations against him as well and demanded the entire case be dismissed. Instead, it went to trial, but documents show that both parties agreed to dismiss the lawsuit in February.
Watch McKnight’s original 2023 an 2019 videos regarding the abandonment claims and incest allegations against Briana below:
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