2014 note found on Aretha Franklin’s couch is a valid will, jury rules: NPR

Kekhalef Franklin, son of music star Aretha Franklin, left a court hearing with his family Tuesday in Pontiac, Michigan. A jury said on Tuesday that a handwritten document by singer Aretha Franklin that was found on her couch after her death in 2018 is a valid Michigan will. , a decisive turn in the dispute that turned her sons against each other.

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Kekhalef Franklin, son of music star Aretha Franklin, left a court hearing with his family Tuesday in Pontiac, Michigan. A jury said on Tuesday that a handwritten document by singer Aretha Franklin that was found on her couch after her death in 2018 is a valid Michigan will. , a decisive turn in the dispute that turned her sons against each other.

Carlos Osorio/AP

A Michigan jury has ruled that a note written by the late soul singer Aretha Franklin is valid in her will, according to the Associated Press.

In 2019, Franklin’s niece found three handwritten documents around the singer’s home in a suburb of Detroit. One of them, dated 2014, was found under the sofa cushion.

Two of Franklin’s sons, Kekalfe and Edward Franklin, argued through their attorneys that they wanted the latter to override a separate will written in 2010. The opposing party was their brother, Ted White II, whose attorney argued that the 2010 should stand because the 2010 was found It’s under lock and key at Aretha Franklin’s house.

The most recent will states that Keckalf as well as Aretha Franklin’s descendants will be entitled to her home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The 2010 will say that her children will need to earn a certificate or degree in business before they can become eligible for her estate, but it does not say that in the 2014 version, According to the Associated Press.

Both releases would allow her four children to benefit from the music property and copyright rights. The Associated Press reports that Aretha Franklin’s fourth son, Clarence Franklin, lives in an assisted living facility and was not present at the trial.

Although many of the documents were difficult to read at times, the jury concluded that the 2014 note had her name at the bottom, with a smiley face written inside the letter “a,” the AP said.

Crowned the “Queen of Soul” for songs like “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” and “Day Dreaming,” Franklin passed away in 2018 at the age of 76 from pancreatic cancer.