Michael Jackson estate’s $600m sale to Sony approved despite mother’s objections

Michael Jackson’s estate has been given the go-ahead by a Los Angeles appeals court to sell a portion of the late pop icon’s songs to Sony Music Group for about $600 million.

The ruling came over the objections of Jackson’s mother Katherine, who had said the sale would be against her son’s wishes.

Katherine Jackson, 94, had filed multiple objections after attorney John Branca and A&R executive John McClain, the co-executors of Michael’s estate and trustees of the Michael Jackson Family Trust, announced their intention to go ahead with the sale to Sony in November 2022.

However, the court found that Jackson’s will granted his executors “broad powers to buy and sell estate assets in the estate’s best interests” while stipulating that “all of the estate’s assets will be distributed to the trust”.

The beneficiaries of the trust are Jackson’s three children Prince, 27, Paris, 26, and Bigi, 22, as well as several unnamed charities.

Katherine Jackson had claimed that her son, who died from a cardiac arrest as a result of a propofol overdose, aged 50, in 2009, had told her that he wanted to keep the estate’s assets in the family.

In the court’s ruling they said that Jackson’s will allowed the sale and backed a previous decision by a probate court, writing: “The will gave the executors broad powers of sale, with no exception for the specific assets at issue in this case. As such, the probate court did not err in concluding that it was Michael’s intent to allow the executors to sell any estate assets, including those at issue in the proposed transaction.”

Earlier this year, Bigi Jackson submitted a court filing in an attempt to stop his grandmother from using estate money to fund her legal action.

Formerly known as Blanket, Bigi – who was born Prince Michael Jackson II via surrogate in 2002 – submitted legal documents arguing that Katherine should pay for her own legal bills, stating that it would be “unfair” for him and his siblings, Paris and Prince, who are heirs to Jackson’s estate, to pay for the case.

A new biopic about Jackson, titled Michael, is set to arrive in cinemas on 18 April 2025. The film will be directed by Training Day and The Equalizer helmer Antoine Fuqua and will star Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson in the lead role as the King of Pop.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly last year, Fuqua said his approach to the film would be: “Just to tell the facts as we know it, about the artist, about the man, about the human being. You know, the good, bad, and the ugly.”

Jackson saw his reputation tarnished by a string of child sexual abuse allegations during the 1990s. He was acquitted of sexual molestation in a widely-publicised trial in 2005.