In June 2009, Michael Jackson was at home in Los Angeles while preparing for an ambitious 50-show residency at London’s O2 Arena when he suffered a cardiac arrest and died. His sudden death sent shockwaves around the world.
The 50-year-old singer, widely known as the “King of Pop,” left behind one of the most remarkable, and lucrative, music catalogs in history. Nevertheless, his financial affairs were in disarray. It later emerged that at the time Jackson owed more than $500m to various creditors.
His estate was placed into the hands of a pair of executors, attorney John Branca and A&R executive John McClain. For the last 16 years, the duo have been responsible for managing Jackson’s ongoing affairs and business interests.
Jackson’s estate still owns a significant stake in his celebrated music catalog, although a 50% stake was sold to Sony in 2024. Several other assets have also been sold off, including the publishing rights to the Beatles’ music that Jackson originally bought in 1985. They were also sold to Sony in 2016. Neverland Ranch was sold to billionaire Ronald Burkle, a friend and business advisor to the Jackson family, for $22 million in 2020.
The estate also continues to control the rights to assets such as the Broadway show MJ the Musical and is involved in the forthcoming biopic Michael.
The estate’s beneficiaries were named as Jackson’s three children: sons Prince and Bigi and daughter Paris. However, in recent months a public rift has grown between Paris and the estate’s executors. The 27-year-old actor and musician has repeatedly raised concerns about “irregular payments” and has accused lawyers of “skimming money” from her father’s estate.
Here, we look back at how the feud between the estate’s executors and beneficiaries has developed:
June 25, 2009 — The death of Michael Jackson
It was partly his own financial difficulties that convinced Jackson to stage an ambitious 50-show concert residency at London’s O2 Arena. His personal physician, Conrad Murray, later said: “He was under enormous pressure. The children told him they were tired of living in hotels and rented places, but Michael was broke... He wanted to do the London shows and then buy a family home, probably in Vegas. But night after night he would tell me he didn’t feel he had the capacity to do it.”
On the day of his death – June 25, 2009 – Murray said Jackson returned home to his rented Beverly Hills mansion at 1 a.m. after rehearsals for the shows. “He was hysterical. He was begging me, ‘Please Dr Conrad, I need some milk [Jackson’s term for the anaesthetic propofol] so I can sleep.’”
Murray admitted to giving Jackson a small quantity of propofol, but claimed that he believed the singer also injected himself from his own stash. Jackson suffered a cardiac arrest, and Murray was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter and given a four-year jail sentence.
January 11, 2024 — Jackson’s estate agrees biopic deal
Jackson’s estate does a deal with Lionsgate and Universal to produce Michael, a biopic of Jackson, directed by Training Day and The Equalizer filmmaker Antoine Fuqua and starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson in the lead role as the King of Pop. A release date of April 2025 is later pushed back to April 24, 2026.
March 22, 2024 — Jackson’s son Bigi files to block grandmother Katherine using estate funds for legal battle
Jackson’s son Bigi — formerly known as Blanket — files a legal motion to prevent his grandmother, Jackson’s mother Katherine, of accessing estate funds in order to fund a legal dispute, believed to be over the estate’s own recent catalogue deal with record label Sony, worth a rumored $600 million (£476.8m).
The filing also revealed that Katherine had received more than $55 million (£43.7m) since Jackson’s death, including more than $33 million (£26.2m) in cash from a $166,000 (£132,000) per month allowance, along with $15 million (£11.9m) to buy and improve her home, which has a private gardener, chef and security.
June 28, 2024 — The full extent of Jackson’s financial difficulties become public
Branca and McClain file a petition to the Los Angeles Superior Court seeking legal authorization to pay several law firms for their services rendered to the estate from July through December 2018.
The petition states: “The Executors have faced extraordinarily challenging circumstances... Among other issues, at the time of Michael Jackson’s death, Michael Jackson’s most significant assets were subject to more than $500 million of debt and creditors’ claims, with some of the debt accruing interest at extremely high interest rates, and some debt in default.”
August 22, 2024 — Estate agrees to sell portion of Jackson’s songs to Sony for $600 million, despite grandmother’s objections
The ruling came over the objections of Katherine Jackson, who had said the sale would be against her son’s wishes.
However, the court found that Jackson’s will granted his executors “broad powers to buy and sell estate assets in the estate’s best interests” while stipulating that “all of the estate’s assets will be distributed to the trust.”
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July 11, 2025 — Paris Jackson raises concerns over “irregular payments” made by estate
Jackson’s daughter Paris files an objection to the request for legal fees from Branca and McClain.
In the filing, she expresses concern about the practice of executors granting “so-called ‘premium payments’ for unrecorded attorney time.”
Jackson’s legal team argues that the payments reflect poorly on the executors of the estate, writing: “These irregular payments raise serious and substantial questions about Executors’ ability to effectively supervise counsel… and refraining from wasteful, six-figure gift-giving to themselves and their colleagues.”
July 15, 2025 — Executors say they’ve had to deal with ‘issues’ with Jackson’s ex-wife
Branca and McClain revealed they had to deal with “issues” related to one of the King of Pop’s ex-wives as they made a plea for legal fees.
In a legal filing, the Jackson estate’s executor detailed what one of the law firms was tasked with, with work including “addressing issues relating to Michael Jackson’s former spouse,” although the filing did not specify which of the pop star’s former wives was involved.
Jackson was married twice, to Lisa Marie Presley from 1994 to 1996 and to Debbie Rowe, the mother of Paris and her brother Prince, from 1996 to 2000. Bigi was born via surrogate.
August 4, 2025 — Paris Jackson alleges lawyers are “skimming money” from the estate
Paris filed a new legal motion accusing a “closely-knit, highly-compensated” group of lawyers of exploiting a lack of oversight “to skim money” from her late father’s estate.
She filed a motion requesting a judge intervene. The motion alleges that: “As painful as it is to say in print, the present records suggest a group of closely-knit, highly-compensated lawyers is exploiting Executors’ lack of oversight to skim money from the Estate, in plain view.
“To make matters worse, payment of these gifts has been masked by the fact that Executors’ Counsel are only now requesting approval of fees from 2018, with no reasonable explanation for the delay.”
In response, Jonathan Steinsapir, an attorney for the estate, pushed back against the claims.
In a statement, Steinsapir said: “The historic turnaround and success of the Estate of Michael Jackson on behalf of his children speaks for itself.
“The Estate’s executors’ business judgment has generated billions of dollars for Michael’s children, and they have used that same business judgment to determine fair compensation for a world-class legal team that helped them achieve these unprecedented results, while also fighting back against baseless attacks against Michael by opportunists seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of the estate and its beneficiaries.
“The claims made by this new set of attorneys for [Paris] —who have no meaningful experience representing clients in the entertainment industry — are both baseless and defamatory. We are confident that the Court will reject them outright and will again approve the estate’s accountings as it has done numerous times over the last sixteen years.”
October 15, 2025 - Executors defend their record, claim Paris has received $65 million in benefits
In a legal filing, Branca and McClain hit back at allegations of mismanagement, pointing out that Paris has received substantial benefits.
“Few have benefited more from the Executors’ business judgment than Petitioner herself, who has received roughly $65 million from the Estate in benefits,” the filing claims.
“She would have never received that had the Executors followed a typical playbook for an estate like this one in July 2009.”
They argued that they had turned around the fortunes of an estate which had initially been in disarray, quoting prior praise from a judge to state: “The Executors’ business judgment has taken an estate that ‘started out as nothing but debt and substantial ongoing obligations’ and ‘turned [it] into a $2 billion estate’ — an estate that is now ‘a powerhouse and a force in the music business today.’”
November 13, 2025 - Paris vows to renew estate battle after legal setback
On November 10, a judge ruled against Paris on procedural grounds. Los Angeles Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff threw out all claims based on the estate’s own court filings, ruling that these documents are protected under the First Amendment and California’s anti-SLAPP laws.
However, representatives for Paris told The Independent that she has not conceded defeat, saying in a statement: “This order is limited to minor procedural issues and does not change the facts: the pattern of behavior displayed by the executors and their attorneys raises significant red flags, and Paris will continue working to ensure her family is treated fairly. We will be submitting an updated filing shortly.”
November 18, 2025 - Paris slams Branca for casting Miles Teller to play him in biopic Michael
In a legal filing viewed by The Independent, Paris claimed that Branca’s law firm received more than $10 million from the estate in 2021, more than double what any member of the Jackson family were paid that year from the family allowance.
She also questioned Branca’s role as an executive producer on the upcoming biopic Michael, and the decision to cast A-list actor Miles Teller as Branca in the film.
“It appears that Mr Branca used his position as an Executive Producer, a role he has never before performed in connection with any dramatic feature film, to cast the sole A-list actor in the production, Miles Teller, to play himself in the upcoming feature production Michael,” read the filing.
The filing went on to state that Branca “chose to use (or at least risk) Estate assets to fund rather than license the rights to a studio or production company. Undoubtedly, Mr Branca considers his story to be central to the Michael Jackson story. Nonetheless, it is unclear how this peculiar and presumably costly casting decision will result in commensurate box office receipts.”
Teller appears as Branca in the recent for Antoine Fuqua’s film, which will star Jaafar Jackson as his real-life uncle Michael.
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