Radio conglomerate Urban One is asking a court to throw out Brian McKnight’s defamation lawsuit over broadcasts on The Rickey Smiley Morning Show and a North Carolina local station.
A lawyer for the network says in a Friday (April 3) motion to dismiss that the R&B singer has no legally viable claims for defamation. The January lawsuit took issue with programs on two Urban One affiliates last year: his ex-wife’s appearance on the North Carolina-based satellite station FOXY 107.1, and Rickey Smiley’s excerpted rebroadcast of an interview given by the musician’s son.
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The FOXY 107.1 appearance in January 2025 featured Julie McKnight, who was married to Brian from 1990 to 2003. Julie, who was promoting her book Mama Bear: Beautifully Blended, stated during the interview with FOXY’s Karen Clark that Brian was “negative” during their late son Niko’s cancer treatment, and that she and her children had “stepped away” from the singer due to harmful behavior.
Friday’s motion argues that Urban One can’t be held liable for anything said by Julie, who has never been an employee of the network. And nothing that Clark herself uttered during the interview rises to the level of defamation, says Urban One’s attorney.
“The Ms. Clark statements identified by plaintiff cannot reasonably be interpreted as stating actual facts about plaintiff,” writes Lauren Nichols of the firm Troutman Pepper Locke. “The alleged ‘defamatory statements’ are not truly factual statements — most are merely questions. And any statement not solely a question, is at most an expression of opinion.”
According to Urban One, Brian fares no better in bringing a defamation claim over Rickey Smiley’s December episode featuring clips from an outside interview given by his son, Brian McKnight Jr. In these clips, the younger Brian said his father refused to tell Niko he loved him before Niko died from cancer.
Urban One says these claims fail, too, because Brian “does not identify any specific statements or content from this video that plaintiff asserts are defamatory.” Plus, the company notes that because Brian is a public figure, he has to meet the higher burden of showing that someone intentionally lied (a standard known as “actual malice”) in order to advance the case forward.
“Even assuming the statements made by Urban One were indeed statements of ‘actual fact,’ not opinion/hyperbole, and could be defamatory (they cannot), plaintiff does not allege any facts that Urban One knew, or should have known, the statements were false or that any statements were made with a reckless disregard for the truth,” reads the dismissal motion.
Urban One is urging a federal judge in Raleigh, N.C., to toss the lawsuit outright before any evidence discovery or trial. Brian’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment on the motion.
The R&B singer, known for chart-topping songs like “Anytime” and “Back at One,” has been on somewhat of a defamation lawsuit spree since Julie published Mama Bear at the beginning of 2025. He has pending libel claims against his ex-wife for passages of the book that characterize him as emotionally abusive and neglectful towards their children.
Brian also sued singer/songwriter Jaguar Wright last year over a slew of Instagram videos stating that he was physically abusive to Julie as well as to sex workers during their marriage. Brian denies all claims of mental or physical abuse.
