A handwritten note found under Aretha Franklin’s couch will serve as her last will. The judges’ decision was released this Tuesday (11), after the 2014 document surfaced.
Records with scrawls and hardtodecipher passages surfaced in 2019 when Aretha’s niece Sabrina Owens searched her aunt’s home looking for documents. “She used the kitchen and living room — that’s all,” the woman said in an affidavit reported by Fox News. “So when I got to the sofa, I lifted the cushion on the right and there were three notebooks,” he recalls.
First, the Queen of Soul passed away in 2018 without leaving an official will. A certificate from 2010 was later found in a locked cupboard at his home. At that time, one of the singer’s sons, Ted White II, was considered the main beneficiary and administrator of the fortune. However, the new declaration provided a twist in the dispute that pitted the heirs against each other.
Aretha died of cancer in 2018 at the age of 76 (Picture: Getty)
In both records, Franklin says her four children would share her estate and copyrights. However, in the 2014 version, the artist replaces Ted White with Kecalf Franklin, Aretha’s other son, as steward of the estate. Additionally, Kecalf and his grandchildren inherited another $1.1 million estate.
Another provision in her 2010 will stated that Kecalf and her brother Edward “must take business courses and earn a certificate or degree” in order to benefit from the inheritance, but that too has been removed from the current document.
It was a victory for Kecalf and Edward, whose lawyers argued that the new find should take precedence over the previous one. “I’m really, really happy,” Kecalf said after the verdict was announced. “I just wanted my mother’s wishes to be granted. We just want to take a deep breath now. It’s been a long five years for my family and my kids,” he concluded. White, who testified against the 2014 will, did not comment on the advice.
According to a BBC report, the singer would have a net worth of US$80 million around R$386 million at the current dollar exchange rate. There will still be debate as to whether some of the details of the 2010 will should be fulfilled and whether Kecalf Franklin can indeed become the executor.