Aretha Franklin’s Sons Settled Her Estate But Are Still Fighting Over What’s Left Behind — and What’s Sitting In Storage May Unlock Pieces of Her Legacy
Scattered across metro Detroit, in 11 rented storage units, sits what’s left of the Queen of Soul’s private world.
Eight years after Aretha Franklin died, her sons still can’t agree on what to do with the Bloomfield Hills house where she spent her final years.
A fight that traces back to a piece of notebook paper found under her couch cushions and a jury that eventually decided it counted as a will.
The houses have been divided. But the most valuable thing in those units may be the part nobody has settled or heard.
Some of the reel tapes have no labels on them at all.
Among the assets still in dispute are dozens of reel-to-reel audio tapes and video recordings recovered from Franklin’s home, the Detroit Free Press reports.
Several of the audio reels are unmarked, leaving open the question of whether they hold unreleased masters or recordings she made privately and never intended to release.
The video haul is no less significant. It reportedly includes rehearsal footage from her 1998 “VH1 Divas” performance, a 2003 concert and her 1996 “Christmas at New Bethel” gospel program.
At the 1998 finale of VH1 Divas Live, Aretha Franklin led a soaring gospel performance, inviting fellow singers to help “lift Him higher.” Celine Dion eagerly rose to the challenge, matching Aretha’s powerhouse riffs note for note. The result was a spontaneous, electrifying… pic.twitter.com/JxRutd7Yag
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Beautiful Melody
(@Ducnghia16) March 5, 2026
This particular footage was recorded at the Detroit church her father pastored.
Ted White II, Franklin’s third son who performs as Teddy Richards, has argued the material is sitting in storage that can’t properly preserve it and should be moved to a facility built for archival media.
The whole matter began with a paperwork issue.
Prayers up!
At New Bethel Baptist Church where Aretha Franklin's dad, Rev. C.L. Franklin, was a pastor.
Aretha sang in the choir as a teen & recorded One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism here.
The church was also a hub of the civil rights movement in Detroit. pic.twitter.com/VKItxKfHi9— Errol Nazareth (@ErrolNazareth) August 19, 2018
Franklin died of pancreatic cancer on Aug. 16, 2018, without a conventional, attorney-drafted will.
Her niece Sabrina Owens took over as executor, and in 2019 three handwritten documents surfaced in the house.
One letter from 2010 was found in a locked cabinet, and another dated March 2014 was stuffed into the couch. The 2014 pages were scrawled, edited and hard to read in places, signed with her signature “A. Franklin” and a smiley face drawn into the A.
A Detroit-area jury declared it valid in 2023 anyway. That November, Oakland County Probate Judge Jennifer Callaghan used it to split the real estate.
According to People, youngest son Kecalf Franklin got the Bloomfield Hills home lawyers had called the “crown jewel,” valued at $1.1 million in 2018; Edward Franklin received another property.
Ted White II was granted proceeds from a Detroit house the estate had already sold for $300,000. A fourth property was ordered sold and the money divided.
None of that was possible until the estate cleared a $7.8 million back-tax debt to the IRS, paid off by cashier’s check in June 2022. So the big-ticket items are essentially done. What’s left is smaller, and somehow more personal.
The current fighting largely pits Kecalf against Ted White II. They’ve clashed over copyright interests in songs including “Think” and “Dr. Feelgood,” over the financial arrangements supporting their eldest brother Clarence, who has special needs and lives under legal guardianship.
White has also objected to Kecalf allegedly installing security cameras at the storage sites without consulting the other heirs.
The docket has has since moved past 1,400 motions, petitions, briefs and rulings. At least a dozen attorneys remain involved, with each son carrying both personal counsel and separate music counsel.
Franklin’s longtime attorney David Bennett said the family was urged early on to work it out among themselves rather than litigate. But that didn’t work. “Everybody wanted something to the exclusion of somebody else,” he said.
The case has now run longer than the six-year battle over Prince’s estate, though it still trails the 15 years of litigation that followed James Brown’s death in 2006.
There have been moments of alignment. The brothers jointly signed off on letting the 2024 Kamala Harris campaign use “Think” free of charge, per Billboard. They both pushed back on fees submitted by court-appointed executor Andrew Mayoras.
But the estate cannot close until the remaining assets are handed out and someone settles who controls Franklin’s music, her royalties and her archive.
Which means the tapes stay in the units. Unlabeled, unheard, and still waiting on four brothers to agree.
