Music icon Prince’s US$156.4 million estate in final valuation
- Prince, who died of a fentanyl overdose in 2016, did not leave a will, resulting in a six-year battle among lawyers paid tens of millions of dollars to administer his estate
- The estate will be divided between a New York music company and the three oldest of the superstar’s six heirs; two siblings have since died and two are in their 80s
The six-year legal battle over pop superstar Prince’s estate has ended, meaning the process of distributing the artist’s wealth could begin next month.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the Internal Revenue Service and the estate’s administrator, Comerica Bank & Trust, agreed to value Prince’s estate US$156.4 million, a figure that the artist’s heirs have also accepted.
The valuation dwarfs Comerica’s earlier US$82.3 million appraisal. The Internal Revenue Service in 2020 had valued the estate at US$163.2 million.
Prince, who died of a fentanyl overdose in 2016, did not leave a will.
Since then, lawyers and consultants have been paid tens of millions of dollars to administer his estate and come up with a plan for its distribution. Two of Prince’s six sibling heirs, Alfred Jackson and John R Nelson, have since died. Two others are in their 80s.
“It has been a long six years,” L Londell McMillan, a lawyer for three of Prince’s siblings, said at a hearing Friday in Carver County District Court.