Katherine Jackson is fighting for the right to funds in her late son Michael Jackson’s estate.
After Michael’s youngest son, Bigi, filed court docs to block her from using his father’s estate to pay her legal fees associated with an ongoing undisclosed legal battle — believed to be against the estate’s recent estimated $600 million catalog deal with Sony — Katherine has formally filed a response.
According to documents obtained by People, Katherine, 93, submitted a response on March 20 complaining that the King of Pop’s estate executors have plenty of cash to support her $500,00 worth of legal fees, and therefore should.
“… 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,” her complaint reportedly reads.
It also claims “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” and that “hundreds of millions of dollars” would still be available to the estate’s beneficiaries if her costs were covered.
Katherine is not a beneficiary of her son’s main estate but of a separate trust.
Furthermore, Katherine argues against the executors’ previous concern that they’re obligated to donate a portion of Michael’s estate money to various charities, saying, “…Nothing in the Trust requires those payments to be made before any preliminary distribution to other beneficiaries.”
Bigi, formally known as Blanket and born Prince Michael Jackson II, was previously on her side and fought against the $600 million Sony transaction, but he backed out of the legal fight once a judge ruled the deal could move forward.
Michael’s estate also claimed in their own court filing on March 21 that Katherine has received over $55 million since the “Thriller” hitmaker’s 2009 death. The executors said $33 million of that came from a $160,000 per month allowance.
Consequently, they argued that Katherine could fund her legal battle herself.
While Biji’s filing states that he doesn’t think the estate should be responsible for Katherine’s full legal battle, he supported payments of “reasonable attorney fees and costs” for her initial objection to the deal, per People.
Bigi is Michael’s youngest son and was born via surrogate in 2002. His siblings include Prince and Paris.
