The handwriting is often messy, the instructions sometimes contradictory.
But three handwritten documents apparently prepared by Aretha Franklin show that the singer was indeed thinking about the fate of her estate.
Franklin was thought to have left no will when she died Aug. 16 in Detroit, prompting many to wonder why a figure of her stature would neglect such an essential task.
But the three documents submitted this week to Oakland County probate court, said to have been found in her residence, reveal that she did put in an effort. Two are dated 2010, while the other — said to be in a notebook found under the cushions of a living room couch — is marked 2014.
In the newly found documents, she also emphatically disavows two previous wills she’d supposedly prepared decades earlier, including one with a letter addressed to Temptations singer and romantic flame Dennis Edwards.
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