Brian McKnight has filed a lawsuit against his ex-wife, his own son, two bloggers, and a major newspaper, alleging they collaborated on a "shockingly dishonest" and "sensational but false narrative" that he abandoned his children and refused to tell his dying son Niko McKnight that he loved him before Niko's death last year.

According to the lawsuit obtained by TMZ, the 56-year-old "Back at One" singer names his ex-wife Julie McKnight, their son Brian McKnight Jr., bloggers Marc Lamont Hill and Tasha K, and the New York Post as defendants. The suit alleges a coordinated "malicious character assassination" campaign designed to damage his reputation, career, and current family for financial gain.

Niko McKnight died on May 30, 2025, at age 32 after a year-long battle with cancer. In the months that followed, his mother Julie and older brother Brian Jr. publicly criticized Brian Sr.'s conduct during Niko's final months. The most damning claim: that Brian refused to tell Niko he loved him on his deathbed.

"Those words should come easily, freely and often," Julie told Page Six in a December 2025 interview. "And in Niko's case, lying on his sick bed, fighting through pain, fear and uncertainty, he deserved that love spoken over him more than ever."

Brian McKnight Jr. echoed that account in an interview with Marc Lamont Hill that Page Six published in December 2025, calling his father's alleged refusal "one of the darkest and coldest and most disheartening memories of [his] life." Hill had already amplified the story in November 2025 on an episode of The Joe Budden Podcast.

Brian's lawsuit also alleges that Tasha K — already infamous for her $4 million defamation loss to Cardi B — went further by falsely claiming online that McKnight had cheated on his current wife and had sex with a minor.

McKnight filed a separate defamation suit in March 2026 against The Rickey Smiley Morning Show and its parent company, Urban One, seeking $25,000 in damages. That suit targeted a radio interview in which host Karen Clark spoke with Julie McKnight, amplifying what he calls false portrayals of him as an abusive and neglectful father, along with clips from Brian Jr.'s interview with Hill. Urban One is currently seeking dismissal, arguing the comments "cannot be reasonably interpreted as stating facts."

McKnight has been estranged from his four adult children — Brian Jr., Niko, and two others — from his marriage to Julie for years. He has been open about the rift on social media and has publicly embraced his wife Leilani Malia Mendoza and their two younger children, whom he frequently features in music and family content online. His older children and their mother have been equally public in painting a different portrait of him as a father who walked away.

The specific allegations about Niko's deathbed have been the most damaging to McKnight's public image to date — and are now at the center of his legal counterattack. Brian is seeking unspecified damages. None of the defendants have publicly responded to the lawsuit as of publication.