*Brian McKnight is catching heat from fans online for “fetishizing” his non-Black stepkids while allegedly ignoring his own biological children.
Knight is married to a woman named Dr. Leilani Mendoza and she has two children from a previous relationship, Julia and Jack, Hot New Hip Hop reports. Back in December, the R&B crooner took to Instagram to post about Julia’s birthday. The photo shows her posing in front of a car that the singer and his wife gifted her.
McKnight captioned the post: “Today we celebrate you Jules on your birthday your mom and I couldn’t be prouder of you and I couldn’t ask for a better daughter than you!!! Happy birthday to the best daughter ever! Love u a zillion.”
His fans were quick to criticize him in the comments for seemingly forgetting about his biological daughter, Brianna.
Knight has four biological children. He is father to sons Brian Jr. and Niko from his marriage to his first wife Julie. Then there is his daughter Brianna and son Clyde from previous relationships.
READ MORE: Brian McKnight Posts Video to Respond to His Children’s Claims of Abandonment – WATCH
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The old post of McKnight’s stepdaughter is gaining new traction as fans leave fresh comments on the photo.
One IG user commented, “It’s super weird you’re like fetishizing their culture with all your hashtags ???????????????? also, don’t you have a daughter, like one that shares your dna?”
Another person wrote, “Guess your life only began recently. What happen to your kids from 1st marriage? I hope this new family never disappoint him.”
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In 2019 Briana hit up social media to share “aspects of her perceptions of growing up with an unnamed absent father on her personal Instagram page,” the lawsuit stated, according to Radar.
“In that post, she simply described her personal feelings as the daughter of an unnamed father who had withdrawn from her,” per the lawsuit.
While she did not mention her father’s name, McKnight clapped back on his own Instagram account and intentionally lied when he said “Briana was a promiscuous and incestuous minor, and thereby (he hoped) undermining Briana’s credibility regarding a post that did not even identify him.”
McKnight told his Instagram followers, “And unfortunately along the way, a couple years ago I caught wind that there was an older cousin who was above 18 who was quite possibly having sex with her.”
Briana denied his allegations in her lawsuit.
Meanwhile, back in 2019, McKnight responded to claims by his biological children that he’s a deadbeat dad.
“I’ve never missed a day of child support. I’ve never done anything adverse to my children whatsoever. I’ve always been there with advice whether they took it or not. I’ve always been the sounding board to help them achieve whatever dreams they were reaching out for. I guess one of my only faults is I gave my children everything that I didn’t have in the hopes that they would have appreciated it,” he said.
McKnight added. “I will tell you as parents out there, entitling your children is probably one of the worst things you can do and I know I’m guilty of that. Tough love is a tough thing to try and institute to your children because you wanna help them as much as you can and I did as much as I possibly could. When I stopped doing that for them, BJ was 25 and Brianna was 22. And it wasn’t like I completely cut them off. That happened much later.”
