Assets of Johnny Hallyday frozen as family feud grows

Children win legal bid over property and royalties after ‘French Elvis’ left estate to his widow

THE two eldest children of French rock singer Johnny Hallyday won a legal bid to freeze his property assets and royalties in France yesterday in a bitter family feud over an inheritance estimated to be worth up to €100million (£86 million).

However, the court rejected their plea to be able to be able to have a say on his posthumous album, due for imminent release, as to whether it is worthy of the author of such Gallic greats as Quelque chose de Tennessee.

France was plunged into mourning when Halliday died in December at the age of 74 after suffering lung cancer at the end of a five-decade career, that saw him sell 110 million records and release 1,160 songs. More than a million mourners had gathered for the funeral of the crooner they called “the French Elvis” in Paris.

Amid the tears, the revered singer dropped a bombshell on his family by leaving his entire estate to his fourth wife Laeticia, 42, a former model, and their two adopted daughters, Jade and Joy, but nothing to his two eldest children from previous relationships.

Actress Laura Smet, 34, along with her half-brother David Hallyday, 51, challenged the will, with Ms Smet’s lawyer declaring she had been left nothing, “Not a guitar, not a motorbike, and not even the signed sleeve of the song Laura, which is dedicated to her”.

The will was drawn up in California, where Hallyday spent much of his later years when not in Saint-barthélémy, a French Caribbean island.

The two children argue that the American will is contrary to French law, which would automatically have split the inheritance between the four children and his wife.

With a decision over whether French or US law applies to the inheritance likely to last months or years, the eldest children sought to freeze his assets and rights.

In a partial victory, the court in Nanterre, west of Paris, decided to freeze those based in France. The judge ruled that there was a “real risk of a transfer of all assets of the deceased to the JPS Trust” – a Us-based trust run by Bank of America whose sole beneficiary is Laeticia Hallyday.

The court said the move was justified as the transfer “could happen at any moment, and/or the liquidation of the estate, thus depriving them of almost any chance of recovering a potential share of the inheritance”.

Laeticia Hallyday was forbidden from “selling or disposing of ” the singer’s properties in Marnes-la-coquette, an affluent village near Paris, and Saintbarthélémy. All royalties from song rights would also be frozen.

However, the court ruled against freezing control of two other Us-based properties in Santa Monica and Los Angeles, where Laeticia lives. Both sides claimed victory after the ruling.