When American recording artist Brittany Porter met Sultan Muhammad V, ruler of the Malaysian state of Kelantan, she thought their fairy tale romance led to an engagement. A year later, she discovered that the Islamic nikah ceremony was in fact a religious marriage, a revelation that came only after the country’s former monarch had cut off contact.
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“In April 2024, we went on our first trip together to Oman. I thought we got engaged there, because in my culture the big ceremony is a wedding which we planned for January 2025. So I was confused. In Oman they brought an imam out and I did the whole conversion, but he didn’t teach me all that much about Islam,” said the California native, who is now releasing music inspired by her break-up.
Porter, 30, said that she only recently learned that a nikah constitutes a legally binding marriage under Islamic law. The aspiring pop singer has since broken her silence on her relationship with Muhammad V, who previously reigned as King of Malaysia from 2016 until his abdication in 2019, when he resumed duties as the ruler of the religiously conservative Kelantan province.
“We met in January 2024 in New York, introduced by mutual friends on a night out. We had this instant chemistry and good banter,” she said, describing his intelligence and “cute” British accent as an immediate draw. “We were just friends at first, but we started talking every day and the next thing you know …”
The pair embarked on a whirlwind romance, with Porter and her friends being treated to opulent holidays in the Middle East and Thailand as well as lavish gifts of clothes, handbags and jewellery set with blue diamonds to “match [my] eyes”.
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