CHUX OHAI looks at the progress that estates of some deceased superstars are making
It is no news that American pop legend,
Michael Jackson, died on June 25, 2009. What is certainly news and worth
noting is that the estate he left behind, which was almost going
bankrupt at the time, has generated about $2bn within the last six
years.
American celebrity magazine, TMZ,
first broke this news online a few days ago. It reported that the money
came through the sale of 50 million copies of the late superstar’s
albums, the movie titled ‘This is It’ and the show, ‘Michael Jackson:
The Immortal World Tour,’ as well as other ventures that he was involved
in.
After
the payment of taxes and other expenses, the magazine noted, the money
finally came to around $450m – quite a tidy sum to be held in trust for
the singer’s children till they come of age.
What this means is that the estate,
which was in a very bad shape as a result of an alleged $500m debt owed
by Michael before his sudden death, could now guarantee his children –
about four of them – a lifetime of comfort and immunity from poverty.
Like Michael, multiple award-winning
singer and actress, Whitney Houston, was reportedly indebted to the tune
of $20m by the time she died on February 11, 2012. Fortunately, the
increase in sales of her works after she passed on yielded enough income
to pay off the debts. The sales also produced another $20m in profits
for the estate.
The only snag was that Whitney did not
set up a trust before she died. Instead, she wrote a will which stated
that all her assets should go to her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, after her
death and the same should be paid in percentages to the young woman
when she attained certain ages.
Yet, various reports put the total value
of Whitney Houston’s estate at between $20m and $12m. Unfortunately,
the star singer’s daughter’s, Bobbi Kristina, was found unconscious in
her home. She was to receive the sum of $1.2m as the first instalment of
her inheritance.
Kristina, the only child of Whitney and
ex-husband Bobby Brown, would have inherited her late mum’s entire
estate by the time she turned 30. But, now that her father has been
advised by doctors to take her out of life-support, it is doubtful if
this will be possible.
At a point, Bobbi Kristina’s
grandmother, Cissy Houston, was worried that the 20-year-old, who was
pronounced brain dead after slipping into a prolonged coma last year,
would fritter the money away on hard drugs.
Whitney’s estate include a luxury
apartment in Atlanta, Georgia and a mansion in Mendham, New Jersey,
which was sold for $1.5 million to a buyer in June 2014. Built in 1986
at the cost of $2.7m, the 12,561-square-foot home has five bedrooms,
five bathrooms, a six-car garage, 13 skylights and 108 windows. It
includes a tennis court, pool house and pool, a circular driveway and
six-car garage.
Also, British singer, Amy Winehouse, was
worth just over £2m when she died in July, 2011. But subsequent loss in
the value of her estate provoked questions about what happened to the
rest of her fortune.
According to news reports, the questions
were based on the publication of annual accounts for her two companies,
Cherry Westfield and CW Touring.
The publications, the reports claimed, showed that Cherry Westfield was worth £2,004,963 at a point, down £20,000 in 2009.
For some of Nigerian big stars who have
passed on, it is very difficult to track the progress of their estates.
The major reason is that there are no clear-cut structures with which to
monitor them. The distribution channels are warped where they exist,
while activities of pirates make the sector what some people have
described as a no-man’s land.
Such artistes include Fela
Anikulapo-Kuti, Sunny Okosuns, Stephen Osadebe, Orlando Owoh and Sikiru
Ayinde Barrister. While internal wrangling within their families appear
to be robbing the estates of some of them of possible gains, the absence
of standard companies to guard their legacies is another major problem.
There is, however, an indication that
Fela is making progress in death, as companies managing his music abroad
are said to be making cool returns to the family. For one, Fela on Broadway is said to have earned the family good money in recent time.
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