According to court filings, Katherine Jackson is not backing down against a legal battle against her grandson, Bigi Jackson, for her right to access funds in her late son Michael Jackson’s estate.
On March 20, Katherine responded to Bigi’s court order that initially blocked his grandmother from tapping into the Grammy award-winning artist’s $1.5 billion estate to settle pending legal fees, People magazine reported. She alleged that executors have the means to compensate her for half a million dollars.
The documents state that “… 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.”
“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,” Bigi’s grandmother contended in the documents.
Unlike Michael’s children, the 93-year-old grandmother is not a beneficiary of her son’s main property but of a separate trust in the Grammy award-winning singer’s will. Katherine has accumulated over $50 million since the King of Pop died in 2009.
Additionally, the court documents filed by Katherine affirmed that there would be no “loss to creditors or injury to the estate or any interested person” to pay off her legal fees. The papers rebutted an argument the executors’ attorneys made on March 8 regarding the find’s responsibility to pay 20% in charity donations.
“Nothing in the Trust requires those payments to be made before any preliminary distribution to other beneficiaries,” the filings insist, adding that she is qualified to make use of Michael’s funds.
Prior to her recent objection, Katherine had been in a toe-to-toe battle with Attorney John Branca and A&R executive John McClain, the co-executors of the Billie Jean singer’s property. The mother of ten disagreed with what was related to a reported $600 million sale of half of the Thriller star’s music catalog to Sony. Bigi, formally known as Blanket and born Prince Michael Jackson II, stood in opposition with Katherine until the judge’s green light decision to proceed with the sale took an unexpected turn. The 22-year-old California native revoked his dispute in the battle that would persist for his grandmother.
On March 18, Bigi’s court filing claimed that the Jackson property wouldn’t “benefit” from paying his elder’s pending appeal against co-executors Branca and McClain.
Amid the family’s dispute, a Michael biopic is in the works. Actress Nia Long, who will play Katherine, the matriarch of the legendary Jackson Five brother band, proudly anticipates the film’s release.
