‘Darkest, coldest memories of my life’: Brian McKnight Jr. opens up on his father refusing to tell Niko McKnight he loved him

The McKnight family drama has taken several twists and turns, including lawsuits and plenty of jarring accusations on social media.

The family drama between Brian McKnight and his estranged first family may have entered its most poignant chapter yet.

During an exclusive interview with Marc Lamont Hill, McKnight’s son, Brian McKnight Jr., and ex-wife Julie McKnight opened up about their relationship and how things have gone awry. In one segment of the 90-minute interview, Brian Jr. and Julie reflected on Brian’s relationship with his son Niko and how, even in the middle of a cancer battle, all Niko wanted was to hear three words from his father, only to be denied.

“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. 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. My father responds, ‘I can’t arbitarily say that I love you.’”

Niko McKnight passed away in May at the age of 32.

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Brian Sr. alleges that he was kept away from Niko during his final days, placing blame on Julie.

“To the self-proclaimed ‘mama bear, ‘ may God have mercy on your soul for not allowing him to accept that help and not allowing him to use that line of communication,” he said in a lengthy Instagram post. “There is great comfort in knowing God knows the TRUTH and the totality of the WHOLE story. I am truly thankful for the immense peace God has given me. I’ve left everything in HIS hands. I have a clear conscience. The only judgment that matters is God’s.”

The emotional sitdown comes on the heels of Brian Sr.’s conversation with Anton Daniels discussing his divorce from Julie, how his sons were turned against him and that he made a mistake marrying Julie at age 20, prompting his now infamous comments that Brian Jr. and Niko were “living like rock stars” while on tour with him and that things “got out of control,” a claim Brian Jr. vehemently denied to Hill.

“The longest amount of time that me and my brother spent with my father consecutively were the nine years we toured together,” Brian Jr. told Hill. “I started touring at 17, my brother is 14, hadn’t spent any time with my dad like that. Me and my father had a special relationship like that because I played ball, so I got to hang out with my dad more just because of that, let’s start there.”

Brian Jr. moved back to California at 18, a move he considers that changed the McKnight family dynamic significantly. But Brian Jr. didn’t hold back on his father’s claims that he and his brother were “lazy and entitled.”

“Me and Niko? We worked our a—s off, I don’t care what my dad says,” Brian Jr. said. “We loved it. We got to tour, we got to travel, we got to learn a lot, I watched my dad open and close the show every night. I loved it, man. That was my favorite time of my life doing that with my father and my brother. And we worked hard together. We worked very hard, lots of early mornings, lobby calls, we were never late. I ran the sound checks most of the time before my dad got there. Did we party? Did we hang out? Of course we did! I was 19! And we smoked weed! To talk about us like we were drug addicts … entitled? We were young kids!”

Marc Lamont Hill goes straight to the source and gets speaks directly with Brian McKnight’s children about what they experienced growing up

Full episode here: https://t.co/L422mILWcV pic.twitter.com/1SvZP7Xfvk

— Micah Jung Un (@Micah_W17) December 2, 2025

The back-and-forth between McKnight and his estranged first family has become well-documented in recent years. After Brian Sr. took to social media in October to prematurely celebrate an $8.8M judgment against Julie in court, Brian Jr. fired back, calling the move “petty.”

“I’ve tried, man. I’ve tried really, really hard. To not touch on sh-t. To let it go, to be the bigger person, to be mature,” McKnight Jr. said. “But the sh-t going on with my dad right now, man. If y’all aren’t seeing what’s happening. If y’all aren’t seeing the fact that this is just a very hurt, and a very emotionally unavailable and not intelligent person that has still not been able to handle the death of his own mother … to decide to make certain posts on my late brother’s birthday?”

Hill’s involvement comes as he and Brian Sr. have traded barbs online after Hill referred to the “Back At One” singer as an “a–hole” for being rude to Hill’s co-hosts, not long after he interviewed them, and McKnight’s interactions with fans.

“I don’t know you, but I don’t have to know you to know that you’re an a–hole,” Hill said on “The Joe Budden Podcast.” “I don’t get into your family business, 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.”