Tony Bennett's Legacy: A $12 Million Estate Battle. The legendary singer's death in 2023 sparked a bitter family feud over his multimillion-dollar fortune. While his iconic career left a mark on San Francisco and the world, his will left his daughters, Johanna and Antonia Bennett, locked in a legal battle with their brothers over control of his estate and a significant shortfall in assets. This ongoing Manhattan court case reveals the complex details of his 2016 will and trust, signed just before his Alzheimer's diagnosis, which granted his sons sole control over his vast music empire. Discover the shocking truth behind the distribution of his wealth and the fight for his legacy
Tony Bennett's Estate Battle: Daughters Fight for Share Two Years After Singer's Death. A bitter legal dispute unfolds in Manhattan Surrogates' Court, as Tony Bennett's daughters challenge the distribution of his multi-million dollar estate, claiming they were excluded from control despite his 2016 will. The ongoing fight, two years after his 2023 passing, reveals a complex trust agreement granting his sons sole estate management
Tony Bennett's $12 Million Estate Battle: In 2016, while still performing with Lady Gaga, the legendary singer signed his will, leaving his widow $5 million and the remainder to his four children. However, a bitter legal fight reveals his sons were granted sole control of his multimillion-dollar estate, leaving his daughters with no say in managing his considerable music royalties and assets, sparking a protracted estate dispute in Manhattan Surrogates' Court
Tony Bennett's estate: An uneven split fuels a bitter family feud. Two years after the legendary singer's death, a legal battle rages in Manhattan Surrogates' Court over the management and distribution of his multi-million dollar fortune. While his will stipulated an even split among his four children, his sons were granted sole control of the estate, leaving his daughters with no say in managing his substantial concert earnings and royalties. This unequal power dynamic, revealed in recently unsealed court documents, is at the heart of the ongoing conflict
Tony Bennett's Will Sparks Family Feud: Daughters Fight for Equal Share of $12 Million Estate. Newly released documents reveal the late singer's 2016 trust agreement favored his sons over his daughters in managing his multi-million dollar music empire, built over a seven-decade career. The ongoing legal battle exposes an uneven distribution of control over concert earnings and royalties, leaving his daughters, Johanna and Antonia, with limited involvement in the estate's administration
Tony Bennett's 2016 trust agreement, signed while he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, granted his sons, Danny and Daegal, exclusive control over his multimillion-dollar estate, excluding his daughters, Johanna and Antonia. This decision, witnessed by his long-time attorney, sparked a bitter legal battle between the siblings following Bennett's 2023 death, raising questions about the estate's diminished value
Tony Bennett's daughters, Johanna and Antonia, were excluded from managing their father's multimillion-dollar estate, sparking a protracted legal battle. The 2016 trust agreement granted sole control to his sons, Danny and Daegal, leaving the daughters with no voice in the estate's administration, a fact they only discovered after his death. This ongoing estate dispute, involving millions in missing assets, continues to unfold in Manhattan Surrogates' Court
Tony Bennett's daughters, Johanna (55, New York City) and Antonia (51, Los Angeles), remain silent on their father's contentious estate battle, declining comment through a spokesperson. This ongoing legal fight, involving millions of dollars, challenges the distribution and management of the late singer's estate, two years after his passing
Tony Bennett's daughters, Johanna and Antonia, are battling in Manhattan Surrogates' Court over their father's estate, claiming they only discovered after his 2023 death that the estate's value is a mere $12 million—far less than expected. This revelation fuels their ongoing legal fight against their brothers, who controlled the estate's management under their father's 2016 will and trust. The sisters question the significant shortfall in their father's multimillion-dollar fortune
Tony Bennett's Estate Battle: Daughters Fight for Share of Missing Millions. Two years after the legendary singer's death, his daughters are suing in Manhattan's Surrogates' Court and New York Supreme Court, questioning the whereabouts of millions from his multimillion-dollar estate. The legal battle reveals a trust agreement granting his sons sole control, leaving his daughters with significantly less than expected
Tony Bennett's estate battle: Lawyers for his daughters claim he earned at least $100,000 per appearance in the 15 years leading up to his 2022 retirement, with significantly higher fees for major performances like his 2016 Radio City Music Hall shows with Lady Gaga. This revelation fuels their ongoing legal fight over the $12 million estate, questioning the distribution of his multimillion-dollar fortune
Tony Bennett's Estate Battle: Daughters Fight for Their Share of $100 Million Fortune. Despite earning an estimated $100 million from performances, the late singer's will left his four children with only $12 million, reduced to $7 million after his widow's $5 million prenuptial inheritance. This discrepancy fuels a bitter legal battle between Bennett's daughters and sons over control and distribution of his estate
Manhattan Surrogate's Court demands a full accounting from Tony Bennett's manager, Danny Bennett, 71, who held sole power of attorney and served as sole trustee of the late singer's estate after his 2023 death at age 96. This follows a contentious estate battle between Bennett's children, sparked by the unequal distribution of his multi-million dollar fortune
Tony Bennett's daughters sue for financial transparency, demanding records from the 2022 sale of their father's artwork, music royalties, name and likeness rights, and memorabilia, including valuable items like his Army dog tags and a signed Frank Sinatra photograph. This legal battle, raging since the legendary singer's 2023 death, centers on alleged mismanagement of his multimillion-dollar estate and questions the $12 million remaining
Tony Bennett's daughters allege their brother, Danny Bennett, received over $2 million in commissions from a bulk sale of their father's estate, while they each received only $245,000. The sisters claim they still lack complete information regarding this transaction, fueling their ongoing estate battle
The sisters’ related March 2025 lawsuit in New York Supreme Court seeks a similar full accounting, plus an unspecified cash award and to have Danny Bennett removed as trustee due to his alleged “unlawful conduct.” The lawsuit also names younger brother Daegal and Susan Crow Bennett as defendants without alleging wrongdoing on their parts.
Danny Bennett has countered in court papers that his decisions were for the benefit of the family trust, that the sisters’ estimates of their father’s income and financial worth are grossly exaggerated, and that he has provided far more accounting than he was obligated to.
“He trusted me not to steal from him. And I did not,” Danny Bennett wrote in a February court filing. He declined to comment for this story, except through his attorney.
“This litigation only serves to distract from Tony Bennett’s illustrious and unprecedented success and legacy,” the attorney, Eve Rachel Markewich, told Business Insider.
“We have answered and addressed the specious allegations in court papers,” she said. “But rather than lending credence to them by commenting outside of the litigation context, our client prefers to concentrate on celebrations of Tony’s upcoming centennial in 2026.”
The beloved performer was born in 1926 in Queens, New York; he earned 20 Grammys and recorded 50 albums in the years since his first hit, “Because of You,” in 1951.
The 2016 Bennett Family Trust Agreement specifically barred Johanna Bennett and Antonia Bennett from ever serving as trustees for the estate.
“Neither a daughter of the Grantor nor a descendant of a daughter of the Grantor may be appointed as a Trustee,” the trust agreement reads, with “grantor” referring to Tony Bennett. This was done “for good and sufficient reasons best known to the Grantor,” the trust agreement also reads, without elaborating.
Neither son was barred from being a trustee.
“Clearly,” Danny Bennett wrote in a February court filing, “Tony did not want his daughters to have any involvement, whatsoever, in his affairs or his business, during his life or after his death.”
Legal experts say such setups are not unusual. High-wealth, multi-heir families often create trusts that divide assets equally but limit decision-making, putting just one sibling in charge to avoid squabbling, said Mordy Mandel, a trust and estates attorney in New York City for 30 years.
Otherwise, “you have the other siblings always arguing, ‘How dare you sell that!'” said Mandel.
Parents commonly see different strengths in their children, assigning one child control over financial decisions, for example, and another over healthcare decisions, said Alan E. Sash, who handles trusts and estates at Bushell, Sovak, Kane & Sash in Manhattan.
Both attorneys have long experience with New York estate and trust law, and reviewed Tony Bennett’s final will and trust for this story. They confirmed that the documents limited Johanna and Antonia’s financial role to collecting their 25% bequests. They also said the sisters have every right to demand an accounting now.
“Danny had no legal obligation to tell his siblings how the trust was being managed,” Sash said. “But it may have been wise to do so along the way, so that there’s no surprises later on,” as is alleged to have happened here, he added.
Tony Bennett’s lawyer, Philip J. Michaels, who witnessed the singer’s 2016 signing of the final will and trust agreement, declined to comment on the estate battle or this story.
But the performer himself expressed nothing but confidence and gratitude toward his eldest son in the decades before Alzheimer’s took its toll.
“I love being managed by my son,” Tony Bennett told Billboard Magazine a quarter-century into their client-manager partnership, and at a time when he was selling out 100 dates a year.
“We get along great. Danny had me so set up, I could have retired five years ago,” the singer added in that 2006 interview. “But I’m still not finished with what I have to do.”
At awards ceremonies throughout the years, the singer called his son and manager to the stage to share credit, including for his comeback Grammy Award in 1995.
“Tony was unrelenting in his praise of Danny during his lifetime, and credited Danny with turning around his career after he hit bottom in the late 70s, including a near-fatal cocaine overdose and financial disaster that caused the IRS to try to seize his home in Los Angeles,” the son’s lawyers wrote in a court filing from November.
Both cases appear to be in their early days.
The Surrogate’s Court case, seeking only a thorough financial accounting, includes hundreds of pages of documents from the sisters’ original 2024 lawsuit against Danny Bennett. The paperwork from that lawsuit was transferred to the Surrogate’s Court in late July.
The 2025 lawsuit, meanwhile, may remain on ice until December 15, the deadline for Danny Bennett to file a response or an application to transfer that case, too, to Surrogate’s Court.
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