Aretha Franklin's sons are still fighting over the soul singer's estate

Aretha Franklin's estate is still unresolved eight years after her death, with more than 1,400 court filings on the docket and several central questions open, That Grape Juice reports.

The fight has largely set Franklin's youngest son, Kecalf Franklin Cunningham, against his brother Ted White II. They have clashed over copyright interests in songs including "Think" and "Dr. Feelgood," over financial arrangements for their eldest brother Clarence, and over hundreds of items held in storage units.

White has also objected to Cunningham installing security cameras on those units without consulting the other heirs, a small dispute that shows how little the two sides agree on.

The document at the center of it was settled three years ago. A jury validated Franklin's handwritten 2014 will in 2023, a notebook page famously found wedged beneath couch cushions. Even so, the estate cannot close until the family distributes what is left and resolves control of the music, the royalties and the archive.

Among the most valuable unresolved assets are dozens of reel-to-reel tapes and video recordings, some of which may hold unreleased masters or rare concert footage. Franklin's longtime attorney David Bennett summed up the impasse bluntly: "Everybody wanted something to the exclusion of somebody else."

The brothers have occasionally agreed. They jointly approved the free use of "Think" in a 2024 Kamala Harris campaign ad. The case joins a long list of unfinished R&B and soul estates, alongside the Notorious B.I.G. catalog fight and the settlement of Nipsey Hussle's estate.