Last week, we reported that the legendary television personality Larry King had specifically left his widow Shawn King out of his will after his death last month. Now, Shawn has launched a legal battle to contest his will in court.
An insider told Entertainment Tonight that King amended his will in 2019 to leave his $2 million estate to his five children, two of whom have since passed away. His will is dated October 17, 2019, which is two months after he filed for divorce from Shawn. King had been married to Shawn for 22 years at the time of his death, and their divorce was never actually finalized.
“Larry and I, you know, we never finalized our divorce,” Shawn said after his death. “In my heart, I didn’t think it was really going to happen and it never did. We were partners in every sense of the way, in business, and in, well, first in our family and then in business. But we’re a close family. You know, family is the most important thing, and God.”
Shawn and King got married in 1997, and though they both filed for divorce in 2010, they went on to reconcile and it never became official. He then filed for divorce again in August of 2019, and it was this divorce that was still pending at the time of his passing.
The final will of King’s was jotted down by him by hand on a piece of paper.
“This is my Last Will & Testament. It should replace all previous writings,” King wrote, adding that his fortune should be “divided equally among my children Andy, Chaia, Larry Jr., Chance & Cannon.”
Sadly, Andy and Chaia both died last summer, the former suddenly of a heart attack and the latter after a short battle with lung cancer.
Larry Jr., King’s oldest surviving son, has asked to be appointed administrator of the estate, pointing out that his father was in the middle of a divorce at the time of his death. The documents estimate that King’s estate is worth around $2 million, but there are likely separate assets held in separate trusts.
In the wake of King’s death, his widow Shawn said that she doesn’t really see him as being gone.
“I believe he’s still around us and I can feel him,” Shawn said. “I can very, very distinctly feel him around me and around us. I’m sure he is so happy at the coverage that his passing has gotten. … Larry was a little boy in so many ways. And he used to always, you probably have 30 different soundbites of him saying, ‘I pinch myself every day. I can’t believe this is my life.’ And he really, really did. So all of these beautiful tributes, you know, I’m sure he’s thrilled, and the family, we’re all just so happy and so proud of him for all the wonderful things that he did. He did a lot.”
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