Another Celebrity Estate Battle Looms

Grandfather helping his teen granddaughter fill out an absentee ballot. Isolated on white.

Celebrity’s son claims his son is attempting to cheat him out of his proper share of legacy.

The late poet Maya Angelou, who wrote the poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” gave a 75% interest in the “Caged Bird Legacy” foundation to her son, Guy Bailey Johnson, and a 25% interest to her grandson, Colin Ashanti Murphy-Johnson. The son is suing the grandson, according to the Courthouse News in “Maya Angelou’s Son, Grandson Fight Over Poet’s Legacy.”

In recent decades, students all over America have studied Maya Angelou’s poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” in school

She directed that her assets, including the copyrights to her works, should be put into a foundation called the “Caged Bird Legacy” after she passed away and left the shares to her son and grandson.

The son now claims that the grandson tricked him into giving up control of Caged Bird Legacy and  the grandson is now taking assets out of the of the foundation for his own use, without giving his father his fair share.

It is too soon to know whether the son or the grandson is in the right or wrong in this case.

It is another example of a fight over a valuable estate and why it is sometimes better not to leave family members in charge.

Reference: Courthouse News (Nov. 6, 2017) “Maya Angelou’s Son, Grandson Fight Over Poet’s Legacy.”