An American singer says what she believed to be an “engagement” to Malaysia’s former king was in fact a marriage—and she now wants a “proper divorce.”
Brittany Porter, 30, claims she learned months after participating in an April 2024 ceremony with Sultan Muhammad V in Oman that it was actually a legally binding Islamic nikah marriage contract, the South China Morning Post reports.
Muhammad V, 56, has been Sultan of Malaysia’s Kelantan region since 2010, when his father, Ismail Petra, became incapacitated after a stroke. He was also king of Malaysia from 2016 to 2019, becoming the first monarch in the country’s history to abdicate from the throne.
Porter, who records music under the name “Brook Lynn,” is Muhammad V’s fourth wife—and one of his two current spouses.
The Sultan was previously married to Tengku Zubaidah binti Tengku Norudin, 45, from 2004 to 2008, and to Russian beauty queen Oxana Andreevna Voevodina (known as Rihana Petra during their marriage), 33, from 2018 to 2019. He and Voevodina share one son, born in 2019.
He has also been married to Sultanah Nur Diana Petra Abdullah, 37, since 2010. The couple appeared together as recently as September, when they celebrated the Sultan’s 56th birthday.
Porter told the South China Morning Post that she met the Sultan through mutual friends in New York in January 2024, and was attracted to his “good banter” and “cute British accent.” The singer said her relationship with Muhammad V moved quickly and soon featured lavish gifts and frequent trips across Asia.
“He flew me and my friends all around the world. He was so generous, the nicest hotels, giving my friends the best treatment, experiences and gifts. He loves hotels, he probably spent millions on them for our trips,” Porter told the outlet. However, she says the April 2024 ceremony was the couple’s first overseas trip.
The singer told Daily Mail that Muhammad V proposed shortly before they left for Oman. However, she believed the religious ceremony was merely a celebration of their engagement.
“In my culture, the big ceremony is a wedding, which we planned for January 2025. So I was confused,” she told the South China Morning Post. “In Oman they brought an imam out and I did the whole conversion, but he didn’t teach me all that much about Islam… I only recently learned that a nikah constitutes a marriage under Islamic law.”
While living in Malaysia, Porter was referred to as “Che Puan,” a formal title for the non-royal spouses of royal family members. She told Daily Mail that the relationship had issues early on, and that she and Muhammad V often argued about her extravagant spending, adding that the fighting got worse after she suffered a miscarriage.
Porter says the Sultan eventually cut off all contact prompting her to demand a “proper divorce.” When she flew to Malaysia to confront him, she learned he’d already left for Singapore and had blocked her on all platforms.
Since separating from the Sultan, Porter has returned to music with two singles, and has plans to release an album in January.
“I feel like I’m in my villain era right now,” Porter told Daily Mail. “Going through all of this, it really put me on a different path.”
