Post by Admin on Apr 23, 2016 14:11:48 GMT -4
The vast fortune accumulated by Prince over the course of his music career is likely to go to his only sister if the singer failed to leave behind a will.
Tyka Nelson, 55, will be awarded Prince's estate under Minnesota state law as his closest living relative.
She and her brother were close in recent years after a difficult stretch in their relationship when Tyka was struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine and prostituting herself to support her two young sons, Sir Montece Laeil Nelson and President LenNard Laeil Nelson.
Prince has an approximate net worth of $300million, which does not include the millions his estate is set to make in the coming weeks from the increased sale of merchandise and music or the money the singer received when he signed a deal agreeing to stream all his music on Tidal.
His music catalog meanwhile is worth over $500million according to Prince's first manager Owen Husney, due in large part to the fact that unlike other artists he owned both his master recordings as well as his own music publishing.
Prince also has a large collection of unreleased music, which Husney believes may include an album he made with jazz great Miles Davis
Minnesota law states that if an unmarried individual with no children dies without a will, the parents, grandparents, and siblings of that person stand to inherit their wealth, though that can be contested in court under certain circumstances.
Prince's parents, John L. Nelson and Mattie Shaw, are both dead and Tyka is his only sibling.
After Tyka, Prince's closest relatives are his three half-sisters and four half-brothers.
His father John had three daughters and two sons from his marriage to Vivian Nelson - Lorna, Norrine, Sharon, Duane, and John.
Lorna passed away in 2006 and in 2011 her brother Duane died.
Then, after her divorce from John, Prince's mother Mattie remarried and gave birth to two sons, Omarr and Alfred.
Tyka, who is unmarried, took time to thank fans outside Prince's home on Thursday for paying tribute to the singer in the wake of his sudden death.
'He really loved you all,' she told those outside his Paisley park compound.
She was born two years after her big brother in 1960, and like him is also a singer.
Her life however was nothing like her brother's, and in 2003 she spoke about how bad her situation was before entering rehab with The National Enquirer.
'I was a single mother and my boys were babies,' said Tyka.
'I sold my body for food, money and pampers.'
She also spoke about one particularly low moment when she began selling her possessions in order to buy drugs.
'I pawned the car Prince had given me and sold the kids’ TV for drugs,' said Tyka.
She detailed her difficult relationship with her brother at the time as well, saying; 'I love my brother. But I’m not a yo-yo. He can’t just keep spinning me in and out of his life.'
n a 2008 interview with City Pages Tyka again talked about her drug addiction, as well as her early years with a pre-fame Prince.
She started smoking weed at the age of 13, saying of her decision; 'I was the overweight kid who didn't have a boyfriend. I listened to other people say, "You're ugly, you're fat, you're stupid," and I believed it.
'My brother, he just thought I was crazy.'
She ran away to Los Angeles soon after she said, just as her brother's career began to take off in the music industry.
Tyka tried to break into the music industry on her own in California but had no luck, and said that she had no desire to reach her goal due to nepotism on the part of his brother.
She revealed that growing up she and her brother would often play music with their parents, who were both successful jazz musicians.
She would sing while Prince would play the piano, the same way her mother sang while her father played the piano.
Tyka said she was writing music by the age of 10 but said she had trouble getting over her shyness about performing following an incident where she was teased as a child.
It was only during her childhood years that she ever played with her brother she said as well, wanting to make sure her sound and vision for her music was wholly her own.
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