Fight for soul diva’s fortune
ARETHA FRANKLIN DIED WITHOUT LEAVING A WILL
AS ARETHA FRANKLIN’S FOUR SONS COME TO terms with having buried their mother in Detroit on Aug. 31, they are now facing a bitter public battle over her $US108 million fortune, after the Queen of Soul died without a will or trust. The “Respect” singer, who lost her battle with pancreatic cancer on Aug. 16 aged 76, wasn’t married and her estate was expected to be divided equally between her four sons, Clarence Franklin, 63, Edward Franklin, 61, Kecalf Cunningham, 48, and Ted White Jr, 54. However, her long-term on/off boyfriend, fireman Willie Wilkerson, now believes he is entitled to some of her fortune.
The pair met at a fan meet-and-greet in Detroit in the 1980s and went public with their relationship in a cover story for Jet magazine. Referencing their star signs—she was an Aries and he was a Capricorn—franklin said she and her “forever friend” Wilkerson were “a fiery match … We’re locking horns, baby!”
They called off an engagement in 2011, but they continued to see each other until she died. Now her sons are reportedly at odds about whether Wilkerson, 71, is entitled to a portion of the musical icon’s estate, a fight legal experts say could take years to resolve. “I tried to convince her that she should do not just a will but a trust while she was still alive,” Don Wilson, a Los Angeles lawyer who worked on entertainment matters for Franklin for nearly 30 years told the Detroit Free Press. “She never told me, ‘No, I don’t want to do one.’ She understood the need. It just didn’t seem to be something she got around to.” •