Larry King’s widow, Shawn Southwick King, has begun a legal challenge against her late husband’s handwritten will, which purports to divide the TV legend’s estate among his children.
Southwick King argues that the former talk show host had “questionable mental capacity” at the time the will was signed in October 2019 – which was two months after he filed for divorce and 15 months before he died of sepsis in January this year.
According to Southwick King’s lawyers, King had just suffered a stroke when he wrote the will and was susceptible to “outside influences”.
At the time of King’s death, aged 87, his divorce had not been finalised. He was survived by Southwick King and their two children, Cannon and Chance, as well as by Larry King Jr, a son from a previous relationship.
The will – a picture of which has been published by US insider site Variety – states that King wanted “100% of my funds to be divided equally among my children”.
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King had five children when he wrote the will. Two of them – Chaia and Andy – died weeks apart in 2020.
The handwritten will contradicts the will King signed in 2015, in which his then-wife was named executor of the estate and the sole trustee of the King Family Trust, which appears to hold the bulk of her husband’s assets, Variety reports.
Larry Jr argues that his father and Southwick King were no longer together at the time of his death and were living separately after their house had been sold.
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But Southwick King’s lawyers said: “After the [divorce] filing, the parties had gone to counseling, were still speaking, and reconciliation remained possible until Larry’s health conditions made that impractical.”
A hearing has been set for 24 February in Los Angeles County probate court.
