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CELEBS WHO BOTCHED THEIR ESTATE PLANNING Celebrities’ estates are complex at the best of times, because their large fortunes are often tied up in different investments and because there are often multiple heirs from multiple marriages and affairs. Sadly, many who have chaotic lives also leave their financial affairs in a state of chaos when they die. By Martin Hesse
1. ROBIN WILLIAMS
2. JIMI HENDRIX
US comedian and actor Robin Williams apparently took great care in creating a trust to ensure his heirs were well cared for. But after his death from suicide in 2014, there was a well-publicised dispute between Williams’s three children and his widow, Susan Schneider-Williams. It involved Susan’s right to live on in one of the couple’s mansions and which items belonged to her and which belonged to the children - the wording in the trust document was vague on these points.
Considered by many the greatest rock guitarist of all time, Jimi Hendrix died of a drug overdose at the age of 27 in 1970. He did not leave a will. For decades there were ongoing court battles among his siblings, his father Al Hendrix (who died in 2002) and the estate lawyer, Leo Branton, who took control of the estate. Major disputes centred on ownership to the rights to Hendrix’s music and to his name and image for commercial purposes.
