What We Know About Kehlani’s Disturbing Custody Battle
Their ex filed a lawsuit accusing them of raising their 5-year-old daughter in a cult.
It has been five years since Kehlani welcomed a daughter with their then-partner and guitarist, Javaughn Young-White. Though the couple didn’t stay together — Kehlani has since been seen with YG and, a few years later, 070 Shake — the two seemed to have been co-parenting smoothly until recently. In July, Young-White filed for full custody of his now-5-year-old daughter, Adeya, claiming Kehlani is raising the child in a cult led by a man accused of sexual assault.
In court documents reviewed by the Cut, Young-White — who is the brother of comedian Jaboukie Young-White — wrote that Adeya’s 2019 home birth was “orchestrated by what I would describe as a cult.” (Young-White appears to have been present for the delivery. In since-deleted social-media posts from 2019, he wrote that Kehlani “gave birth at home standing up, unmedicated, into my arms” and called it “the most beautiful moment of my life.”) Because of the unconventional setting of his daughter’s arrival, Young-White claims, his name does not appear on his daughter’s birth certificate.
In his petition, Young-White says he believes that Kehlani has been “involved in this cult for the past few years” and that the group “controls” the singer’s “behavior, including when it comes to the upbringing of our daughter.” He didn’t identify the group, though his papers were filed in Los Angeles and he described a “cult leader” who goes by Neto and has “numerous accusations of committing sexual assault against women and girls.” According to Young-White, Neto “banned” him from seeing Adeya after receiving a “vision that I was a danger to our daughter and would kill her.”
In 2023, Young-White claims, he found out Neto was performing “religious ceremonies” on Adeya that involve his being in a room alone with her. Young-White says he was “physically restrained and threatened by members of the ‘cult’ when I attempted to retrieve our daughter.”
For their part, in 2022, Kehlani spoke to Bust about exploring new religions and discovering Santeria and has since put out two full studio albums and continued to make public appearances. Over the past few months, they have been an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights, both in public and in their music. On Saturday, concern rippled through their fan base when they appeared on Chris Brown’s Instagram Stories with the caption “Twin ❤️.” The idea of these two hanging out prompted accusations of hypocrisy — Brown had once derided Kehlani’s 2016 suicide attempt as “flexing for the gram” and “doing shit for sympathy so those comments under your pics don’t look so bad.”
On Wednesday, following a TMZ report about the court documents, Kehlani denied ever endangering their child. “What has been published in the media over the past 24 hours is incredibly hurtful, inaccurate, inappropriate, and simply untrue,” they wrote on their Instagram Stories. “I strongly deny any claims that I have put my child in harm’s way, or left my child alone with anyone deemed dangerous or unsafe.” They described their dispute with their former partner as a “legal, private, familial matter that will be handled accordingly,” adding that they plan to “let the legal due process take place.”
On Wednesday, Young-White posted a statement to Instagram suggesting that his petition had been filed in error. “The filing of my case was incomplete and did not have my authorization by error of counsel,” he wrote, adding he planned to submit an “amended filing which will illustrate the full range of my concern.” Young-White added that he “never said that I think Santeria is a sex cult,” clarifying, “I do not need to paint an unfair image of my co-parent for my justifiable feelings to be respected by the court of law.” Kehlani reposted his statement.
He also disputed TMZ’s assertion that he and Kehlani have been ordered by the court to participate in mediation regarding child custody, though there does appear to be a recent mediation order in the L.A. court’s records.
This post has been updated.
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