The singer\u2019s granddaughter claimed that Simone’s family no longer runs her estate. \u201cWanna hold someone accountable,\u201d she wrote. \u201cAsk Kamala Harris why she came for my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nina Simone\u2019s daughter and grandchildren have declared they will no longer be silent, claiming her estate had been \u201ctaken away\u201d from them and they are placing the blame on Vice President Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n
It kicked off on Friday evening when R\u00e9Anna Simone Kelly, the daughter of Simone\u2019s daughter Lisa Simone Kelly, praised Chl\u00f6e Bailey\u2019s sexy rendition of the singer\u2019s iconic song \u201cFeeling Good\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s coming at @ChloeBailey<\/a> for her performance\u2026 But what y\u2019all don\u2019t understand is that grandma was a free-spirited woman herself,\u201d R\u00e9Anna tweeted. \u201cShe would\u2019ve loved that performance as much as I do! Relax. Chloe killed it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGrandma was unapologetically herself,\u201d she added in a follow-up tweet. \u201cShe was a muhhhfuckin badass woman who did what she wanted when she wanted. She was a sexual woman and she expressed that. Educate yourselves! If grandma could, she probably would\u2019ve done that performance herself.\u201d<\/p>\n Still scrolling through comments about Simone and her legacy, R\u00e9Anna came across a tweet questioning why her estate would make a Twitter account for the singer years after her death in 2003\u2014and she decided it was finally time to air her grievances.<\/p>\n \u201cWe as her family don\u2019t run her estate anymore,\u201d the 22-year-old declared<\/a>. \u201cIt was taken away from us & given to white people. Our family name was DRAGGED in the media. We get NO royalties, nothing. Wanna hold someone accountable? Ask Kamala Harris why she came for my family.\u201d<\/p>\n The iconic jazz singer\u2019s family gripe with Harris goes back to 2013, when Harris was serving as California\u2019s Attorney General. After Simone\u2019s death, Kelly was made the administrator of her estate, as well as a charitable trust that Simone had established. It was Simone\u2019s last wish for the charity to support the musical education of Black children in Africa.<\/p>\n But in 2013, Kelly was accused of \u201cbreaching her fiduciary duty\u201d to both the estate and trust, allegedly draining up to $2 million from its coffers, including a $1.5 million deposit into her personal company, according to court records reviewed by The Daily Beast.<\/p>\n Harris oversaw the case and came down hard on Kelly, at one point wanting to surcharge her nearly $6 million, plus more than $2.5 million in interest. Eventually, the parties came to an agreement: Kelly was stripped of her title of estate administrator and agreed to relinquish her rights to Simone\u2019s works. She also was barred from saying or implying that she had any affiliation with her mother\u2019s legacy and estate.<\/p>\n This never sat right with Kelly and her children, with R\u00e9Anna ripping into Harris in her tweetstorm, accusing the politician of separating her family, taking away their family\u2019s rights, and leaving the estate in shambles<\/p>\n \u201cAsk her why she bullied my mother in court and my mom almost killed herself from the depression,\u201d she demanded. \u201cAsk her why my mother had a gag order put on her and can not speak on these things. Ask her why she didn\u2019t even want my mom to be able to say she was Nina Simone\u2019s daughter. Ask her why she wanted us to walk away with NOTHING.\u201d<\/p>\n R\u00e9Anna said Harris twisted the knife even further when John Legend performed \u201cFeeling Good\u201d on the night of the inauguration for President Joe Biden and Harris.<\/p>\n \u201cMy grandmother created something beautiful with her life while she was here on this earth, even through all her pain,\u201d R\u00e9Anna concluded. \u201cI am SO PROUD of her legacy!! I am so proud to be her grandchild. But I feel separated from my legacy. As if it isn\u2019t even mine.\u201d<\/p>\n On Saturday, Kelly took to Instagram to stand by R\u00e9Anna, proudly saying she had \u201cstarted a fire.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI support everything she said,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cShe\u2019s speaking her truth; she\u2019s speaking the truth of our family.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I may not be able to speak on certain things, those close to me who witnessed the happenings firsthand are choosing to step forward with the Truth,\u201d she added in her caption. \u201cFor those who believe everything they read in the media, you have been misled.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating,\u201d Kelly\u2019s son Alexander Simone told The Daily Beast, clarifying that while his mother has some say in Simone\u2019s estate, the family is largely excluded from any conversations about projects involving Simone. When Zoe Saldana was cast to play Simone in a biopic about her life in 2016\u2019s Nina<\/i>, the family was outraged,<\/a> having no say in the matter.<\/p>\n Alexander declined to clarify who exactly was in control of the estate. When Kelly resigned as administrator, the court appointed Los Angeles-based San Pasqual Fiduciary Trust Company as Special Administrator of the estate, as well as making the firm the trustee of Simone\u2019s charitable trust.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing comes back to us,\u201d he explained. \u201cNothing, no recognition. We kind of get overlooked. It\u2019s sad, but it’s been happening so long that we\u2019ve learned to live around it. Everybody else is benefiting off our family name, and nothing was really coming to the family.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs far as royalties or anything that has to be done, it doesn\u2019t come back to us. It goes directly to the estate. It\u2019s hard sometimes to fight a battle that they tried to make. It shouldn\u2019t be a battle at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nina Simone\u2019s Family Blame Kamala Harris For Taking Singer\u2019s Estate Away From Them ‘Started a Fire’. The singer\u2019s granddaughter claimed that Simone’s family no longer runs her estate. \u201cWanna hold someone accountable,\u201d she wrote. \u201cAsk Kamala Harris why she came for my family.\u201d Nina Simone\u2019s daughter and grandchildren have declared they will no longer be Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[54,1],"tags":[1065,1064],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6869,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6868\/revisions\/6869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}