James Brown's Estate Wills More Drama

E! News
by Natalie Finn
Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:51:00 PM PST

What happens to child number seven when Dad's last will and testament only refers to his "six living children"?

That's the question facing the five-year-old son of James Brown, who, along with his mother, was not mentioned in his famous father's will, filed Thursday in a South Carolina probate court.

And that question has different answers, depending on whom you ask.
Brown's lawyers maintain that their late client was never legally married to companion Tomi Rae Hynie and say that James Brown Jr. may be entitled to some of Brown's estate—after a paternity test is performed, that is.

"We would not want to divide and deliver property until all these issues are resolves," attorney Ray Massey said.

Brown's attorneys have said that Hynie and Brown's togetherness was never official because she was still married to another man when the former backup singer and Brown swapped vows in December 2001.
Hynie's marriage to Pakistani immigrant Javed Ahmed was annulled in 2004 on the grounds that Ahmed was using her as a means to obtain U.S. citizenship. Still, Brown's lawyers say, Hynie and Brown never remarried once she was technically single again.

But Hynie's attorney, Robert Rosen, has said that his client most certainly was Brown's spouse and that she plans to sue for half of the Godfather of Soul's estate.

"At the end of the day, in my opinion, Tomi Rae Hynie will inherit 50 percent of James Brown's estate and the trust, and the child, James Brown's son, will inherit one-seventh of the other 50 percent," Rosen told the Associated Press Tuesday.(South Carolina probate law states that, if a will is drawn up before a child is born, the child is entitled to the same amount he would have gotten if his parent had died without a will.)

Brown's will, signed 10 months before James Jr.'s birth and more than a year before Brown and Hynie tied the knot, did not state the exact value of Brown's estate, but it divided up many of the iconic performer's personal possessions, including clothes, jewelry and cars, among six of his kids.

Deanna J. Brown Thomas, Yamma N. Brown, Vanisha Brown, Daryl J. Brown, Larry Brown and Terry Brown were the offspring mentioned when the will was read last week.

Primary assets (aka big stuff), such as the rights to Brown's music and his 60-acre Beech Island estate, which his family is planning to turn into a museum, are in an irrevocable trust separate from the will. That trust doesn’t include Hynie and James Jr., either.

While the will also states Brown's specific intention to not provide for "any other relatives or persons whether claiming, or to claim, to be an heir of mine or not," Rosen pointed out that you're not purposefully excluding a spouse if you weren't married to that person when you made out the will.
"No one disputes that she was his companion," Rosen said. "They were living together as man and wife when he died. He said in his autobiography that she was his wife. He signed the birth certificate saying this was his child, and I can't understand why people would be so disrespectful to her."

The Augusta Chronicle reported Thursday that Brown mentioned having a wife during an interview on a local talk show, given 14 days before he died, to promote one of his charity activities.

"You know, my wife, I got her doing a big thing, but she's still a rock 'n' roll fan," Brown said about Hynie, who once worked as a Janis Joplin impersonator in Las Vegas before hooking up with the "I Feel Good" singer.

Brown also gave Hynie a shout-out when he was inducted into the U.K. Music Hall of Fame Nov. 14 in London, concluding his acceptance speech with, "And I love you, Tomi Rae."

Hynie has said that she and Brown had been living with their son at the Beech Island residence, but she also admitted that she was in rehab in California when Brown passed away. She said that she immediately returned home when she heard the news, only to find eight padlocks shutting her out.

Meanwhile, Brown attorney and trustee Buddy Dallas said that Hynie had not lived there for at least six weeks before the singer's death on Christmas Day at age 73.

Still living in the house, however, is Brown, whose body is being kept in a sealed golden casket in a climate-controlled room while his attorneys process the paperwork that will allow him to be buried onsite.

"[The case] will turn on whether [Hynie] was the spouse," Jim Huff, an attorney who represented Brown for 10 years, told Reuters. "It's preposterous that she would claim one half. If she is deemed to be the legitimate spouse, the most she could claim is one-third. Bottom line is we all know what it's about: money and fame, which Mr. Brown had and she did not."