#KNOWledgeIsPower – Aretha Franklin Edition – 8/24/18

James Brown. Michael Jackson. Prince. And now, sadly, Aretha Franklin.

What do these 4 have in common? Not only are they legends we’ve lost within the last 12 years, but all 4 of them died with questions surrounding their wills; questions about who gets what, in what proportion – it’s all a mess. In the case of the aforementioned, I’ll give examples:

James Brown passed away in 2006, married to one of his backup singers who, unbeknownst to him, was still legally married to another man; after Mr. Brown’s funeral, she held up not only the administering of his will, not only litigating her place in the will and how much of his estate she’d get, but she literally held up his burial for months after he died;
Michael Jackson passed away in 2009; somehow or another through legal finagling,
his lawyers ended up as executors of his near-billion dollar estate – not his family, not people with a direct connection to him, but his lawyers;
Prince passed away in 2016; since then, out of his brothers and sisters, none of them has received a penny of his estate, but plenty of lawyers are making money by negotiating deals to re-release his music, his intellectual property, and anything having to do with his likeness;
Aretha Franklin passed away this week in 2018 and because she passed with no will, her four sons will have to attend probate court where someone else (namely a judge) will get to decide which of them will get what from her estate.

When one dies intestate (meaning ‘without a will‘), the decedent leaves behind the responsibility to people with zero accountability to the family or the estate to decide how matters will be handled in the wake of their death. Like my favorite comedian Paul Mooney once said: “they bury people, they don’t bury money; you cannot take it with you……………..although the Egyptians did try”.

Death is an uncomfortable subject, I get it.

But, better you decide what your loved ones get……………..than someone else.

This week’s ‘KNOW’ledge is information that will help you understand better about the process of creating a will and a living estate.

Rest In Peace, Aretha Franklin “The Queen of Soul” (1942-2018).

Enjoy this week’s FREE info AND BONUS VIDEO below!!