Larry King's estranged wife to contest his secret will
Larry King's estranged wife will be contesting his will.
Shawn King, the seventh wife of the famed broadcaster, was still legally married to him when he died on Jan. 23, despite his August 2019 divorce filing. She said she was surprised to learn he had secretly updated his will — in a handwritten document, penned shortly after his divorce filing, that excluded her — and she will fight it in court,
“We had a very watertight family estate plan,” Shawn, who's mom to the journalist's sons Chance and Cannon, told New York Post's Page Six. “It still exists," she says of the estate plan she says they drew up together in 2015, "and it is the legitimate will. Period. And I fully believe it will hold up, and my attorneys are going to be filing a response, probably by the end of the day.”
Last week, news emerged that Larry wrote a handwritten amendment to his will on Oct. 17, 2019 — about two months after filing for divorce — leaving his $2 million estate to his five children.
Shawn told Page Six that she and Larry had become close friends again after he filed for divorce and they spoke daily. She said, "It beats me!" when asked why she thinks he wrote the amended will. And “based on the timeline, it just doesn’t make sense."
She went on to say that she thinks someone influenced him to create the amended will, but wouldn't say who.
And while she'll be fighting for what the newspaper described as a "meager" amount — a slice of $2 million already split five ways — she said she will fight, saying, “It’s the principle.”
Shawn said her two sons, Cannon and Chance, were also unaware of the amended will and were “shocked.” They will support her legal battle, she said, adding, “They are not happy about this."
Making the split of the estate more complicated, two of Larry's children named in his 2019 will — Andy and Chiara — both died last year, weeks apart, from different ailments. Larry has one other son, Larry Jr.
Shawn spoke out following Larry's death, sharing details of their goodbye, via FaceTime from the hospital, and how he told her he loved her and asked her to take care of their sons. She also shared that the whole family wore his signature suspenders to the funeral service.
“Larry and I, you know, we never finalized our divorce," she told Entertainment Tonight. "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."
Larry — who was married eight times to seven women — told People in 2020 that he would “always care” for his wife, but that “it just hit a point where we didn't get along.” He explained, “We had a big age difference and that eventually takes its toll. It became an issue. Also, [Shawn] is a very religious Mormon and I’m an agnostic atheist so that eventually causes little problems. We overcame a lot, but eventually, it became a ships-passing-in-the-night situation.”
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