‘Emotional’: Michael Jackson’s Son Blanket Shut Down in Effort to Block Estate Executors’ Secret Deal to Sell Late Father’s Assets
Blanket was on his grandmother's side but had a change of heart after the judge agreed with the executors and approved the deal.
Mar. 8 2024, Published 9:00 a.m. ET
Michael Jackson’s mother Katherine and son Blanket made an emotional plea in court to block the executors of the late pop star’s estate from selling off his assets — that ended up being shut down.
As RadarOnline.com first reported, John Branca and John McClain, the two men named executors of Jackson’s estate following his 2009 death, have been fighting 93-year-old Katherine over a secret deal since 2022.
The Jackson estate is involved in the Michael Jackson biopic coming out in 2025.
Branca and McClain asked the probate court to approve a deal they secured in 2022. Their motion was heavily redacted and did not reveal the transaction details.
The executors told the court the deal involved selling Jackson’s assets and said it could bring it over $400 million. The beneficiaries of Jackson’s Will are his 3 children: Prince, Paris and Blanket. The entertainer had a provision in his Will that instructed the executors to take care of Katherine for the remainder of her life.
A couple weeks after Branca and McClain asked the court for approval, Katherine filed an objection. Her filing was also heavily redacted.
All signs point to the deal in question being the recent $600 million deal to sell half of Jackson’s music catalog to Sony.
Branca and McClain fired back at Katherine. They accused her of previous attempts to interfere with lucrative deals.
The duo touted their success in turning Jackson’s estate around as evidence that they possessed the knowledge on what was right for the beneficiaries.
“The Executors turned the debt-ridden Estate around. Exercising the powers granted in Michael’s Will as confirmed by the probate court, they entered into business transactions involving the Estate’s assets that skyrocketed the Estate’s value to over $2 billion,” their lawyers argued.
In the end, the probate court signed off on the transaction despite Katherine testifying against it.
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Katherine appealed the decision. As we first reported, she argued the executors had no authority to sell off Jackson’s assets. She said her late son’s assets were required to be transferred into the Trust that she and the children are beneficiaries of.
In response, the estate said Katherine’s arguments were nonsense. They said she had never objected to previous sales of Jackson’s assets based on the same argument.
The executors demanded the appeal be dismissed.
However, in their filing, the executors revealed new details about what Katherine, Paris, and Blanket said in court.
At the hearing, before the judge approved the transaction, Katherine told the court that Jackson told her “many times” that [redacted] was a “safety net” that he never wanted to sell.”
She said Jackson said he would “ever [redacted] because he said [redacted] was a safety net … [if] they ever give out anything, they can always reach back and sell and get money from [redacted].”
In addition, Paris and Blanket raised objections. Michael's other son Prince said he had no issues with the deal after spending a "significant time, countless hours educating himself" about the transaction.
Blanket told the court the transaction might be “a good business deal” but he objected on “emotional" grounds.
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Paris testified via Zoom. She said that she was “with my grandmother and little brother [Bigi] on this [redacted].” Jackson’s daughter then left the feed.
Katherine said Paris and Blanket were both on her side. Despite it all, the probate judge sided with the executors.
No decision has been made on Katherine’s appeal.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Jackson's companies are headed to trial with two men who claimed the late pop star sexually assaulted them as children.