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Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Alan Thicke's sons claim his wife threatened them with bad press to get more of his estate

Ah, the celebrity life. So glamorous with all those divorces and pre-nups and angry threats to send bad press. Despite the fact that the lives of most celebrities are vastly different than the lives of the rest of us, the issues are the same when it comes to estates.

The widow of Canadian actor, Alan Thicke, is butting heads with his sons, Brennan and Robin, who are the trustees of Thicke's living trust. The widow, Tanya Callau, was Thicke's third wife, and the estate was split between her and Thicke's children. Apparently Callau is stating that the pre-nuptial agreement she signed will not stand up and that she should have more of the estate. In an interesting twist, the sons say that Callau threatened them with bad press if they did not meet her demands.

Click here to read a story from The Hollywood Reporter which has more details.

There is an important take-away from this story. People often underestimate how bad the relationship is going to be between a step-parent and the step-children once the person they have in common has passed away. I've seen it many times with my own clients. It happens to celebrities and non-celebrities alike.

Obviously I don't know what advice Alan Thicke received from his lawyers. I think I would have suggested he use a trust company for his trustee. Perhaps the lawyer did advise this but Mr. Thicke didn't want to do it. Perhaps he did not perceive a need for it. If he is like most people, he over-estimated his loved ones in the sense that he anticipated that they would get along better than they are. He thought they'd behave better. When we (falsely, as it usually happens) believe that estate fights only happen in other people's families, we leave ourselves open. Cooler heads might have prevailed if a neutral third party was in charge of the estate and the family trust.

The attached photo of Alan Thicke is credited to Getty Images.

1 comment:

  1. Blurred Lines....for sure...Robin Thicke.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU

    ReplyDelete

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