Today, it was revealed that Brian McKnight's son Niko has passed away following a battle with cancer. McKnight's brother Claude shared the devastating news with his followers on TikTok. In doing so, he delivered a heartfelt message about his late nephew.
“This morning, I found out my nephew, Niko McKnight, has passed away. He’d been bravely battling cancer for the last two years or so, and I have a lot of feelings right now. It really sucks that he’s no longer with us," he began, as captured by The Jasmine Brand on Instagram. “I don’t know exactly what was going on there. I know what I’ve seen, I know what I’ve heard from all parties involved… And I try not to judge. I just try to be as loving to each person as I can be, because apparently there was so much hurt going on and a lot of things didn’t get resolved.”
Niko McKnight
McKnight has been at odds with his biological children for years. This has earned him heavy backlash from social media users in the past. Last May, his performance at the MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit was even canceled as a result of him calling them "evil." This also prompted a response from McKnight's ex-wife Julie.
"The point of every negative situation, whether it’s an illness whether it’s a fool that you have to deal with because they keep entering your life when you are no longer giving any more energy to it, is to only keep you down to where they thought they had you because they were the author of an extremely abusive situation emotionally, mentally," she explained at the time. "So when everybody pulls that away, it’s like a kid without candy who throws a tantrum…”
Julie has yet to address Niko's passing directly, though she did share a moving quote on Instagram last week, encouraging followers to hug their children "over and over and as often as [they] can."
