Larry King’s widow Shawn is set to go to court over a recently discovered hand-written will that cuts her out of a share of his fortune.
Fox News reports in the article entitled “Larry King’s widow Shawn King plans to contest star’s will in court” after King’s handwritten will was discovered. The will is said to say that his $2 million estate would be divided among his five children.
The document is said to have been drafted on October 17, 2019—just two months after Larry filed for divorce from Shawn. The new will doesn’t mention her at all and also lists his now-deceased children Chaia and Andy as beneficiaries. This will was written a few months before the loss of 65-year-old Andy and 51-year-old Chaia, who died within weeks of each other.
Larry’s three remaining children — Larry King, Jr., 59, Cannon, 20, and Chance, 21 — were also named. Cannon and Chance are King’s children with Shawn. However, Shawn contends that there was already a plan in place between she and King that wasn’t reflected in the alleged document.
“We had a very watertight family estate plan,” she told Page Six of a plan she and her husband drew up “as a couple” in 2015.
“It still exists, and it is the legitimate will. Period,” she remarked. “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.”
The handwritten will is complicated by the deaths of his children in 2020; in addition, Larry also told Page Six before his death that he and Shawn had once again become close. However, it is not known if the divorce was still moving forward.
Shawn also said that she and her husband spoke daily and claimed she was never made aware of an amendment to his will.
“It beats me!” she said when asked why she thinks Larry drafted the new document.
Their two sons were also “shocked” to hear about the change, she said, and claimed they “are not happy about this.”
Shawn also said she thinks someone exerted influence over the broadcast legend to have him write the new will, although offered no additional evidence of this contention.
“Based on the timeline, it just doesn’t make sense,” she said, noting that she doesn’t believe he would have cut her out due to the filing of divorce papers.
According to People magazine, Larry King allegedly wrote in the document, “This is my Last Will & Testament. It should replace all previous writings. In the event of my death, any day after the above date, I want 100% of my funds to be divided equally among my children Andy, Chaia, Larry Jr., Chance & Cannon.”
It looks like under the current will, Shawn would likely get around $300,000 after the $2 million estate was divided among King’s sons and presumably the survivors of his late children. However, she says it’s the principle.
Larry King’s attorney said that while the firm has no comment on Shawn’s position, they feel that “the will, which we will be asking the court to admit to probate on March 25th, reflects Larry’s intent to divide his estate equally among his children.”
