Nina’s kin rip VP
Say Kam gave Simone’s estate away to whites
Nina Simone’s granddaughter has accused Vice President Kamala Harris of “taking away” the legendary singer’s estate and handing it over “to white people,” leaving her so poor she is considering “stripping to pay my bills.”
“My family doesn’t run her estate anymore. It was taken away from us & given to white people,” RéAnna Simone Kelly tweeted Saturday, with her mother, Lisa Simone Kelly, later saying she supported RéAnna “1,000 percent.”
“Our family name was DRAGGED in the media. We get NO royalties, nothing,” RéAnna, 22, said of a 2013 legal battle over the estate when Harris was California’s attorney general.
“Wanna hold someone accountable? Ask Kamala Harris why she came for my family,” she said.
“Ask her why she separated my family. Ask her why my grandmother’s estate is in SHAMBLES now. Ask her why we as her family no longer own the rights to anything. Ask her why she bullied my mother in court and my mom almost killed herself from the depression,” she continued.
RéAnna also said her mother was put under a “gag order.”
“Ask her why she didn’t even want my mom to be able to say she was Nina Simone’s daughter. Ask her why she wanted us to walk away with NOTHING,” she tweeted.
It has left the family “separated” from the singer’s legacy, she claimed. “My grandmother created something beautiful with her life while she was here on this earth, even through all her pain,” she said.
“I am SO PROUD of her legacy!! I am so proud to be her grandchild. But I feel separated from my legacy. As if it isn’t even mine,” she wrote.
“It breaks my heart to know that white people are making money off of grandma’s hard work and that we have had all of our rights as her family STRIPPED from us!!”
She added, “Ask yourself this question. With grandma Nina being as famous as she is . . . Why is it that her family is living paycheck to paycheck? Why do I have to consider stripping to pay my bills?”
RéAnna, who initially deleted her thread, until getting the approval of family members, ended with a final dig at the veep.
“Oh wait. While we’re asking Kamala questions ask her why after all of this pain and suffering she put us through a Nina Simone song was sang at the inauguration to swear her in as VP?!” she wrote of John Legend’s performance of her grandmother’s version of “Feeling Good.”
“She knew what she was doing,” RéAnna insisted.
RéAnna’s family lost a legal battle between then-AG Harris and Lisa Simone Kelly, who was the administrator of both her late mother’s estate and charitable trust.
Lisa Simone Kelly, who goes by Lisa Simone on social media, was accused of “breaching her fiduciary duty” when she allegedly drained up to $2 million from its coffers, including a $1.5 million deposit into her personal company, The Daily Beast reported, citing court records.
Harris had sought to surcharge Lisa Simone nearly $6 million, plus more than $2.5 million in interest, before they agreed for Lisa Simone to relinquish rights to her mother’s work as well as the title of estate administrator, the outlet said.
Lisa Simone posted a video Saturday supporting her daughter, saying, “I support her 1,000 percent . . . she’s speaking the truth of our family.”
It is unclear who is in charge of Nina Simone’s estate now.