Trial will decide which of Aretha Franklin's two handwritten wills is the correct one (2024)

When Aretha Franklin died in 2018 at 76 of pancreatic cancer, she left behind a genre-defining legacy and an estate worth an estimated $80 million.

It was believed that Franklin had died without a will, meaning that her four sons were expected to evenly share her assets. But several months after her death, the family discovered two handwritten wills at her Detroit home — one found inside a cabinet and another in a notebook, sandwiched beneath cushions.

The dueling wills agree on one thing: All four of her sons will share the profits of their mother’s estate, such as ongoing earnings from her recordings. However, the wills offer conflicting information about which family members will control her estate, prompting turmoil among Franklin’s children.

Now, a jury will get to decide which will is valid as the case heads to a trial on Monday, according to court records reviewed by The Times. Judge Jennifer Callaghan, who has overseen the court battle within the family over the previous four years, will preside over the case.

The older will, written in 2010, lists one of her sons, Theodore White, and a niece, Sabrina Owens, as co-executors of the estate. It also says two of her sons, Kecalf Franklin and Edward Franklin, “must take business classes and get a certificate or a degree” to benefit from the estate.

The other will, written in 2014, also has Owens as an executor but crosses out White’s name, replacing him with Franklin’s son Kecalf Franklin. There’s no mention of business classes. Kecalf Franklin and his grandchildren would get his mother’s main home in Bloomfield Hills, which was valued at $1.1 million when she died, but is worth much more today.

“It’s the crown jewel,” Craig Smith, an attorney for Edward Franklin, told the Associated Press about Aretha Franklin’s home.

Franklin wrote in 2014 that her gowns could be auctioned or go to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. She indicated in both papers that her oldest son, Clarence, who lives under a guardianship, must be regularly supported.

“Two inconsistent wills cannot both be admitted to probate. In such cases the most recent will revokes the previous will,” Charles McKelvie, a lawyer for Kecalf Franklin, wrote in a court filing in favor of the 2014 document.

But White’s attorney, Kurt Olson, told AP that the 2010 will was notarized and signed, while the later version “is merely a draft.”

“If this document were intended to be a will there would have been more care than putting it in a spiral notebook under a couch cushion,” Olson said.

Attorneys for Franklin’s sons did not immediately respond to The Times’ requests for comment.

In a separate challenge to the estate since Franklin’s death, the Internal Revenue Service had claimed the soul singer owed nearly $8 million in unpaid taxes. The estate was able to pay back the debt by 2022, according to Detroit Free Press. The debt had kept Franklin’s children from earning profits from their mother’s estate.

Owens, a human resources executive with the University of Michigan, had served as the executor of the estate immediately after the “Respect” singer’s death. However, she quit the role in 2020 as an effort to “calm the rift in my family,” the Free Press reported.

“My primary goal was to honor my aunt by handling her business professionally, fairly and within the law,” Owens wrote in her resignation letter. “In spite of my best efforts, my role with the estate has become more contentious with the heirs. Given my aunt’s deep love of family and desire for privacy, this is not what she would have wanted for us, nor is it what I want.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.