Five years after her death, the final wishes of music superstar Aretha Franklin
are still unsettled, and is now in court.
The Queen of Soul, who died from pancreatic cancer in 2018 at age 76, and had
four sons, did not have a formal, typewritten will in place, despite years of health
problems and efforts to get one done.
But under Michigan law, it is still possible to treat other documents — with include
scribbles, scratch-outs and hard-to-read passages — as her commands.
The trial to determine which handwritten command, including one found in couch
cushions, will guide how her estate is handled, is to take place in Pontiac,
Michigan.
The dispute is pitting a son against other sons. Ted Richards White believes
papers dated in 2010 should mainly control the estate, while Kecalf Cunningham
and Edward Franklin favor a 2014 document. Both were discovered in Aretha
Franklin’s suburban Detroit home, months following her death.