According to Prince’s full-blooded sister, Tyka Nelson, 55, the late singer didn’t have Will.
Today (April 26), Tyka filed documents to open a probate case stating that brother didn’t have a living will. The paperwork states “I do not know of the existence of a Will and have no reason to believe that the Decedent executed testamentary documents in any form.”
According to CNN, Prince was worth $300 million, and his posthumous fortune could be growing to the tune of $1 billion after the boost in music sales. Since he had no living children or parents, Tyka seems to be next of kin to inherit the fortune.
Minnesota law states that, in cases without a will, his estate would go to his sister and his half-siblings who would control his brand, including his record label and thousands of unreleased songs.
CNN also states that Prince may have established a trust. Estate planner Danielle Mayoras and author of “Trial and Heirs” chimed in on the case. “Just because she thinks there’s no will, doesn’t mean there’s no trust out there.” A lawyer should have come forward by now with trust information, but it’s only been a few days, so the courts will wait to see. In the case of Michael Jackson, his mother Katherine Jackson filed a case in probate court to claim his estate, but soon after, a lawyer came forward on behalf of MJ that the star had drafted a few years earlier.
According to People, Tyka is also musician who plays piano, guitar, bass and clarinet. She’s also had a music career, releasing six albums with the most recent one in 2008, a gospel album titled A Brand New Me. The mother of two also plays four different instruments: piano, guitar, bass and clarinet. She’s also battled and won drug addiction and a stint of prostitution.
According to the September 23, 2003, issue of The National Enquirer, Tyka said, “I was a single mother and my boys were babies. I sold my body for food, money and pampers. I pawned the car Prince had given me and sold the kids’ TV for drugs,” she said in the “exclusive interview.” In the early 2000s, Prince entered Tyka into a rehab program, and in 2008 reignited her music career after getting sober.
However, Prince’s former manager, Owen Husney, doesn’t think Tyka is the best candidate to be in control of the fortune, saying she is not “business savvy” enough to handle the rights to her brother’s multimillion dollar fortune. “I’m Tyka is a great person,” he told the Press Association. “But Prince’s music has never really appeared in commercials. God forbid someone gets hold of this thing and it winds up in some toothpaste commercial. I pray that he has left it in good hands with people who know what they’re doing.”
