Prince, Aretha, and the Cost of Dying Without a Will

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Welcome to the show, everybody! I'm Attorney Gregory Robinson. Today, I want to start with a scene that still blows my mind. Picture this: it is 2018, and family members are searching through the suburban Detroit home of the late, legendary Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. Under a living room couch cushion, they find a spiral notebook. Inside? Handwritten, barely legible scribbles from 2014, purporting to be her final wishes. Another notebook from 2010 was found in a locked cabinet.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Now, as an attorney with an MBA, my legal and financial alarms are screaming. Aretha was a global icon with an estate valued at tens of millions of dollars. Yet, her family spent five agonizing years in Michigan probate court, racked up millions in legal fees, all to decipher if a notebook under a couch cushion counted as a valid will. It finally went to a jury trial in 2023. Five years of public family laundry aired for everyone to see.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

And she wasn't alone. Let's talk about the purple highness himself, Prince. When Prince passed away in 2016 at his Paisley Park estate, he left behind an estate valued at roughly one hundred and fifty-six million dollars. And he left absolutely no will. Not a single page. It took six years of intense, public litigation, massive administrator fees, and astronomical tax bills before his six half-siblings finally saw a distribution in 2022.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Think about the irony here. These were fiercely independent Black artists who fought tooth and nail throughout their careers to own their masters, to control their image, and to secure their intellectual property. Yet, by staying silent on estate planning, they handed all that hard-earned control right back to the state. It broke my heart as a fan of that classic, old-school era of music, and it frustrates me deeply as a professional.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

When you die intestate—that's the legal term for dying without a will—the state of Alabama, or Michigan, or Minnesota, essentially writes one for you. The court decides who manages your music, your money, and your home. Your private family dynamics become public record. Generational wealth that could have funded scholarships, preserved historic properties, or secured your grandchildren's futures instead gets chipped away by court-appointed administrators, attorneys, and tax collectors.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Now, you might be thinking, "Greg, those are eccentric, ultra-wealthy superstars. What does that have to do with me?" Well, let's look at a more recent, incredibly painful loss. Chadwick Boseman. Our Black Panther. When he passed away in 2020 at the tragic age of forty-three after a quiet, heroic battle with colon cancer, he died without a will.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Because of his youth and the suddenness of how the public processed his passing, his estate had to go through probate. It was revealed in court documents that his estate was valued at just under four million dollars. His widow, Taylor Simone Ledward, had to file a petition to be appointed as the administrator. Ultimately, after probate costs, the remaining assets were split fifty-fifty between his widow and his parents.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Now, thankfully, Chadwick's family handled this with incredible grace and unity. But the point is, they shouldn't have had to go to court at all during their deepest time of grief. At forty-three, nobody wants to think about their mortality. But youth or sudden illness can catch any of us unprepared. And if you leave a blind spot, the court system—not your loved ones—gets to make the decisions.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Even if you set up a private trust for some assets, leaving just one major asset out of it can trigger the probate process. As someone who served in the military and ran businesses, I look at estate planning through the lens of strategic operations. It is tactical legacy preservation. For the Black community, this is a civil rights issue, a cultural preservation tool. We have historically lost so much land, so much property, and so much wealth simply because we didn't put our wishes in writing.

Attorney Gregory Robinson

Getting a simple will, setting up a revocable living trust, and designating your beneficiaries on your bank accounts—these are not things just for the wealthy. They are acts of love. They ensure that we control our own narratives, protect our families from public scrutiny, and keep our hard-earned assets exactly where they belong: in our families and our communities.