The Jackson family feud is heating up…
In case you missed it, Michael Jackson‘s youngest son Bigi Jackson — formerly known as Blanket — is in the middle of a legal battle with his grandmother. Katherine Jackson is trying to use MJ’s estate money to pay her legal fees for an ongoing legal battle, and Bigi filed to block her. Although he didn’t disclose the specifics about the ordeal in the filing, it is believed to be about the estate making a deal with Sony to sell about half of Michael’s music catalog for $600 million. Initially, Bigi and Katherine had been on the same team opposing the deal. However, the court sided with the executors of the estate.
The 93-year-old refused to give up on the matter and appealed the ruling. Additionally, Katherine wants the estate to fund the new battle. That’s when Bigi jumped ship. The 22-year-old son of the pop icon didn’t want any involvement in the appeal — and doesn’t want any money from the estate funding Katherine’s legal fees! Presumably he thinks she’s unlikely to win the appeal and doesn’t want to throw good money after bad! And maybe he just wants the fight to be over?
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It’s important to note Katherine is not a beneficiary of Michael’s estate like the children — but a sole beneficiary of a sub-trust in his will. With that in mind, his estate also argued in their own court filing last week that she’s received more than $55 million since he died in 2009, with $33 million of that coming from a $160,000 per month allowance. Damn! Therefore, they believe Katherine can fund the legal battle herself. And Bigi appears to feel the same way, though he did note the estate should cover the attorney’s fees incurred from the pre-appeal battle.
OK, so that was the breakdown so far. But Katherine isn’t going down without a fight!
She made that clear to Bigi in a response filed back on March 20 and obtained by People on Tuesday. According to the court documents, Katherine claimed the estate executors are too frugal and have plenty of money to shell out for the $500,000 worth of legal fees she has accumulated during the appeal process so far. The filing states:
“… it seems clear to [Katherine] that the Executors are holding all of the assets in the Estate in order to keep control over them, and to avoid the more liberal distribution requirements of the Trust.”
Katherine further argued that “the Executors cannot in good faith contend that the Estate does not have sufficient available funds to allow the Trust to make the requested payment” — especially since it’s valued at a whopping $1.5 billion at this time. Wow! The late singer’s mother ultimately feels no “loss to creditors or injury to the estate or any interested person” to fund her legal fees, adding:
“This vastly exceeds its potential liabilities, and leaves hundreds of millions of dollars available for the remainder beneficiaries.”
She further pointed out in the filing that the executors’ attorneys said at a March 8 hearing that 20% of the estate is to be donated to charities and that “nothing in the Trust requires those payments to be made before any preliminary distribution to other beneficiaries.”
OK, so we don’t know anything about the legal issues at play here. But we do know it’s clearly something Katharine feels strongly about. Is it worth dropping another half mil or more to avoid a war with grandma?? Seems like a lot of money just to make sure Thanksgiving is less awkward…
What a messy, messy situation! Reactions to the latest filing, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments below!
[Image via WENN, Good Morning Britain/X (Twitter)]
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