Legal

Jackson estate expresses concern over guardianship of late singer’s children

By | Published on Wednesday 25 July 2012

Michael Jackson

TMZ claims that the executors of the Michael Jackson Estate may support a court application to give Tito Jackson Jr temporary guardianship of the late king of pop’s three children, amidst concerns over the health of their current legal guardian, 82 year old Katherine Jackson, and growing tensions between the estate and various Jackson siblings.

Katherine Jackson was reported missing to the police last week, but she turned up at the home of her daughter Rebbie. Another of her sons, Randy Jackson, subsequently told MSNBC: “She’s been playing cards every day. She is having a good time. Her health was ailing. And her doctors ordered that she get immediate rest, isolate herself from the outside world and rest. She wasn’t doing too well”.

While it’s good that the Jackson matriarch is safe, Randy’s comments have only increased concern about his mother’s abilities to care for Michael’s children, one of whom – Paris – said on Twitter this week that she hadn’t seen her grandmother for eight days, and “something is really off, this isn’t like her at all – I wanna talk directly to my grandmother”. Randy Jackson said that he and his sister Janet had tried to visit the three children at their LA home to explain the situation regards their grandmother, but that “we were kind of denied access”.

Although stressing it wasn’t their role to directly intervene on the guardianship of the Jackson children, estate bosses John Branca and John McClain did express concern yesterday, saying in a statement: “We are acutely concerned about the welfare of Mrs Jackson, and most particularly with Michael’s minor children. We are concerned that we do what we can to protect them from undue influences, bullying, greed, and other unfortunate circumstances. While we do not have standing to directly intervene, we have monitored the situation and will continue to do so. We believe measures are being put in place that will help protect them from what they are having to deal with”.

In his interview with MSNBC, Randy also accused his late brother’s estate of exaggerating the issue around Katherine Jackson’s ability to care for her grandchildren in a bid to distract attention from the recent letter in which a number of Jackson siblings accused Branca and McClain of forging his brother’s will in order to take control of his estate. As previously reported, the executors last week issued a statement denying those allegations, pointing out a court had already debunked the ‘fake will’ conspiracy theory, though Randy and several other Jacksons are standing by those claims.

With the exception of Tito, who yesterday retracted his support of the ‘fake will’ allegations, saying in a statement: “I completely retract my signature from the 17 Jul letter sent to the executors of my brother’s Michael’s estate and repudiate all the claims made against them. I don’t want any part of that letter whatsoever”.

Whether that’s linked to the rumours the estate plans to smile on the idea that his son, the aforementioned Tito Jr, should care for Michael’s children isn’t clear.



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