Aretha Franklin’s sons battle over handwritten wills five years after her death

nypost.com:

Associated Press.“This can be settled any time, on the steps, halfway through trial,” he said. “And hopefully it will be. Going to a jury trial is a war.”However, two handwritten wills were discovered in Franklin’s suburban Detroit home, and Michigan law states that other documents — including those with scribbles, scratch-outs and hard-to-read passages — can be used to determine her final wishes.The Queen of Soul had four sons, and the battle over her will is pitting son against sons.Ted White II, known professionally as Teddy Richards, maintains that the papers dated 2010 should be the guide to his mother’s estate, while Kecalf Franklin and Edward Franklin support a 2014 document.Franklin died following a bout with a neuroendocrine tumor on the pancreas — a form of cancer more than 12,000 people in the US are diagnosed with every year, Cancer.net estimates.The “I Say A Little Prayer” singer had a star-studded funeral with speeches from Ariana Grande, Bill Clinton, Stevie Wonder and Al Sharpton.Franklin’s 24-karat-gold-plated casket was transported in a 1940 Cadillac hearse.It was known that the singer-songwriter had died without a formal will, and her niece, Sabrina Owens, agreed to be the executor.

Without a will, Franklin’s four sons would have to share her assets, including real estate, gowns, fur coats and any future royalties.Franklin’s friend, businessman Ron Moten, told her sons at the funeral, “My advice?

Go slow, be careful and be smart.”For the past five years, her estate has been handled by three different executives at different times, while Owens as executor quit in 2020 due to a sibling “rift.” She was succeeded by Reginald Turner, a local lawyer who also served as president of the American Bar.