A famous life can appear carefully arranged from the outside. There are managers to negotiate contracts, lawyers to review agreements, accountants to watch the money, and assistants who make sure every detail arrives on time. Nevertheless, death can reveal that the most important instructions were never written, had not been updated, or were open to several very different interpretations. The trouble is rarely limited to cash. A handwritten notebook, an old guitar recording, a bicycle, a photograph, or even a performer’s name can become the center of a family dispute. Music catalogs continue earning money. Paintings increase in value. Unreleased recordings attract interest from labels and fans. Personal belongings, meanwhile, carry memories that no appraisal can measure.
#1: Prince’s Missing Will and the Vault That Stopped the Music
The locked room at Paisley Park contained tapes, unfinished projects, concert recordings, and songs that Prince had chosen not to release during his lifetime. What it did not contain was a set of instructions explaining how anyone else should handle them. After the musician died in 2016 at 57, no valid will was found, leaving Minnesota’s intestacy laws to determine his heirs while administrators assessed an unusually complex collection of copyrights, property, recordings, and personal archives.
