Son claims father refused to say ‘I love you’ to dying son
Mother accuses father of mistreating son during final days
Father denies claims, accuses family of withholding cancer diagnosis
Source: Paras Griffin / Getty
Brian McKnight Jr. says his long-strained relationship with his father, singer Brian McKnight Sr., reached an unprecedented low following the death of his younger brother, Nico McKnight, whopassed awayin May from colon cancer. In a Patreon exclusive interview with Marc Lamont Hill released Dec. 3, McKnight Jr. and his mother, Julie McKnight, reflected on Brian Sr.’s relationship with Niko and how, even during his cancer battle, all Niko wanted was to hear “I love you” from his father, a wish he was denied, according to a clip from the interview shared on Hill’s Instagram page Wednesday.
“One of the darkest and coldest and most disheartening memories of my life is the day my brother calls me, sobbing with all he’s going through, looking death in the eye, to tell me I’m right about telling him not to call my father because I knew what was going to happen,” McKnight Jr. alleged. “Because I knew where my dad was. I told him, ‘Dad is gone.’ All my brother wanted, needed, asked for was my father to tell him he loves him. And My father responds to him, ‘I can’t arbitarily say that I love you.’”
The teaser also included Julie explaining the voicemail heard in Brian Sr.’s controversial Instagram video from October. In that post, Brian Sr. celebrated what he called an early win in his defamation case against Julie, a moment many fans found inappropriate, as it coincided with Oct. 16, Nico’s birthday. The video featured audio from a voicemail of Julie — whom he labeled “a liar” — telling him and his wife, Leilani McKnight, not to contact Niko, played strangely over footage of the singer clicking his heels mid-run.
Julie said the voicemail was sent in frustration, after witnessing how the Grammy winner allegedly mistreated Niko during his final days.
“Yes, people heard the voicemail, but they have no idea that as a mom standing in the room with my son on speaker with his wife and hearing how belittling his father talked to him,” she said. “The first comment out of his mouth was, ‘I don’t appreciate the way you’re treating my new family.’ Who gives a damn, man?”
Brian McKnight Sr. opened up about his family woes in a new interview with Anton Daniels.
The emotional interview follows McKnight Sr.’s Nov. 19 conversation with Anton Daniels, where he discussed his marriage to Julie, his claims that his sons were “turned against him,” and his now-viral comments that McKnight Jr. and Niko were “living like rock stars” on tour and that things “got out of control” — a characterization Brian Jr. firmly rejected in his sit-down with Hill.
McKnight Sr. also doubled down on a claimhe first made in June, that he was kept unaware of Niko’s colon cancer diagnosis until four months after it occurred.
He further claimed his announcement about litigation landing on Niko’s birthday was not malicious but “God’s timing, because Anton, he did not have to die.”
McKnight Sr. continued:
“We talked to him…earlier that year, that May….Now we come to find out three days after, that’s when he got diagnosed. They waited because he didn’t have insurance. They waited four months to let us know. According to all statistics, 91% of colon cancer diagnoses that are caught early are curable. From the time you got diagnosed to the time we found out, because they didn’t tell us, I had to find out from somebody else. Then I heard from them. So once we found out, we sprung into action. What can we do? Can we get the scans? Can we do this? Can we do that? Anton, by this time, it was stage four.”
The singer accused his estranged family of withholding the news to prolong conflict, saying:
“So you lied on me. You don’t come to me. In my opinion, they murdered him so they could keep this going,” he told Daniels.
He also addressed comments made about him on The Joe Budden Podcast and unexpectedly singled out Hill, threatening that he would “destroy” the journalist for allegedly calling him an “a–hole.”
“I would destroy that dude,” McKnight told Daniels. “Not physically. You don’t even know me, but you called me an a**hole?” Daniels then labeled Hill a “pseudo-intellectual.”
Marc Lamont Hill responded to Brian McKnight Sr. on The Joe Budden Podcast.
Hill quickly responded. On the Nov. 30 episode of The Joe Budden Podcast, he clarified that his assessment of McKnight Sr. came from direct interactions, not online chatter.
“Brian McKnight, you are an a—hole. I’m basing that on having interviewed Brian McKnight lots of times,” Hill said. “You were rude and nasty to everybody on my crew and my team. You were nice to me, but the measure of being an a—hole isn’t how you treat the host, it’s how you treat everybody around them. And you’ve been a di–head to them…. I don’t have to know you to know you’re an a–hole,” he added. “Your family business has nothing to do with me except when you make it public. And when you put your family in public on blast, that might make you an a—hole.”
