Reflecting on the Queen of SOUL & R-E-S-P-E-C-T

  “I wasn't surprised that Aretha Franklin didn't have a Will.  You probably don't, either.”

By Michelle Singletary
Columnist - Washington Post
Aug 23 @ 4:48 pm

"All you can do is learn from other people’s mistakes.

I, like so many others, adored Aretha Franklin. The Queen of Soul’s songs dominate several of my iTunes playlists. When someone makes me mad, I play her version of “Respect.”

But I lost a little respect for her financial acumen when a recent court filing in Michigan by her four sons revealed that Franklin, who died Aug. 16 at 76, didn’t have a will. She reportedly had amassed a fortune of tens of millions of dollars.

I wasn't surprised.

Just how many more stories are we going to report about famous people who didn't take the time to have a will prepared?

Mouths dropped when it was discovered that the legendary musician Prince, who died in 2016, didn't have a will either. His lack of planning has led to multiple claims against his multimillion-dollar estate.

I was surprised to learn Prince didn’t have a will, given that he was famously fixated about maintaining control over his music.

The fact that people who made money didn't take some of their earnings and do some estate planning leads me to the conclusion that it's not about the money. These stars -- even if they died broke -- at some point had enough cash to hire an attorney and get even the most basic will written. So why didn't they?"  Read entire article here...