Aretha Franklin, who died last month at the age of 76, did not leave a will. Her four sons and other family members are thus left to find out how much the Queen of Soul was worth, and to divide it up. The process could take years and is likely to play out in public.
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| Memorial for Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin outside the New Bethel Baptist Church before her body arrives for a public viewing in Detroit, Michigan, on 30 August |
Estate law experts expressed surprise but not shock that a wealthy person like Franklin would put off a will until it was too late. One of the singer’s attorneys said he urged her repeatedly to draft one.
“I tried to convince her that she should do not just a will but a trust while she was still alive,” says Don Wilson, a Los Angeles lawyer who worked for Franklin for nearly 30 years. “She never told me, ‘No, I don’t want to do one.’ She understood the need. It just didn’t seem to be something she got around to.”
Papers filed in Michigan’s Oakland county court last week by David J Bennett, the lawyer who worked most closely with Franklin, lay out the few known basics. She was not married and left four sons, aged 48 to 63: Clarence Franklin, Edward Franklin, Kecalf Franklin and Ted White Jr. Clarence, Aretha’s eldest, is incapacitated and represented by a guardian.
A niece has accepted the role of executor. Under Michigan law, as in most states, the sons will equally divide their mother’s assets in the absence of a will. So far no sign of conflict has emerged.
Bennett did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment. Franklin’s friend Ron Moten, a Michigan businessman, gave her four sons some guidance in his speech at Friday’s funeral.
“Remember your family, and friends that have been with you for years,” Moten told the men. “Because you are about to meet a lot of people who will now want to be your new best friend. You will also meet some people that will have the best investments in the world for you. My advice? Go slow, be careful and be smart.”
The documents make no mention of the value of Franklin’s estate. The figure almost certainly runs into tens of millions but attorneys will seek to downplay her wealth for tax purposes as the Internal Revenue Service tries to maximize it.
Franklin maintained ownership of the songs she wrote and did well by them, Wilson said, though of her major hits, Think was the only one that was her own composition. She also wrote some lesser hits, such as Rock Steady.
She earned little in radio royalties from smashes like Respect, from 1967, because such payments go overwhelmingly to the author not the performer. In the case of Respect, royalties go to the estate of Otis Redding.
“I would imagine she probably felt she was entitled to more but probably received more than a lot of artists from the time, especially African American artists,” Wilson says.
Among Franklin’s more tangible assets are several pieces of property that according to tax assessors’ estimates are worth at least $2m, with a market value that could easily be twice that. Once the value is established – which could take years – the IRS will take any back taxes owed, then tax her estate at 40% beyond $11.2m.
Kenneth Abdo, an attorney who has worked on the estate of Prince, who also died without a will, said the IRS will conduct an audit. Wilson, her entertainment attorney, said she would not have wanted to see her finances publicly aired.
“She was a private person,” he said.
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