Seventeen years after Michael Jackson passed away, the trust he set up for his three children has never been funded. Not partially. Not at all.
Last week his daughter went to court to force the issue, asking a judge to order $600 million transferred into it. The estate says it would love to, but it legally cannot until the taxman is finished with it.
This is one of those disputes where the loudest version of the story is the least useful. Here is what each side is actually arguing.
The filing
On 29 October, Paris Jackson, 28, filed a petition at Los Angeles Superior Court, first reported by Page Six, asking a judge to order a preliminary distribution of $600 million to the Michael Jackson Family Trust. She has told the court she would accept whatever other figure the judge considers appropriate.
The trust exists to provide for Michael’s three children: Prince, 29, Paris, and Bigi, 24. Under its terms as described in the petition, each sibling was supposed to begin receiving income from their share at 21, then portions of the capital at 30, with further distributions at 35 and 40.
None of that has happened, because the trust has never received any money.
“More than seventeen years after his passing, Michael Jackson’s family trust remains unfunded,” the petition states.
Paris’s case
Her argument rests on two things: the money is there, and the clock is running out.
On the money, her attorneys point to an estate accounting showing roughly $850 million in cash and cash equivalents as of December 2024. They cite a run of major transactions that have poured cash into the estate, including the sale of its EMI Music Publishing stake for $287.5 million in 2018, the sale of Neverland Ranch for $22 million in 2020, and a 2023 deal with Sony covering Michael’s music and intellectual property. Those deals alone, the filing claims, generated more than $1 billion before taxes and expenses. The executors have previously valued the whole estate at between $2 billion and $3 billion.
Even after setting aside potential liabilities, Paris calculates that around $600 million is available right now.
On the clock, the maths is simple and slightly uncomfortable. Prince is approaching 30, the age at which capital distributions were meant to start. Paris turns 29 in April. Bigi turns 25 in February. The milestones written into their father’s trust are arriving whether or not the trust has anything in it.
The sharpest allegation is about control. Because the trust is empty, the siblings depend entirely on the estate’s remaining executor, John Branca, to decide when and how much they receive. The petition accuses him of maintaining an “iron grip” through that power.
And here is the structural point that makes the complaint more than a personality clash. Branca is not only the estate’s executor. Michael named the family trust as the sole beneficiary of his estate and named Branca as its trustee as well. One man, both roles, on both sides of the transfer.
The filing also revisits 2011, when the executors told the court they were considering a separate request to distribute money. Her attorneys allege that request was never filed.
The estate’s case
The estate’s response deserves to be read properly, because it is not a brush-off.
Its central argument is that it is not legally free to fund the trusts yet. Chief among the unresolved matters is long-running litigation with the Internal Revenue Service, which sought $700 million in taxes and penalties.
“The Estate was able to secure a ruling to significantly reduce that amount, but the matter has not been settled and could still change,” it said in a statement.
That is a serious constraint. An executor who distributes hundreds of millions while a tax liability of that scale is still live is exposed if the final bill lands higher than expected. Prudence here is not obstruction, it is arguably the job.
The estate flatly rejects the suggestion that it has squeezed the children financially, calling that claim “a complete fabrication”. It says more than $200 million has already been distributed for their benefit, which is a significant figure and complicates the picture of three siblings left waiting with nothing.
And it makes a pointed argument about timing. Under Michael’s will, the estate says, “None of his children receive a distribution until they are in their 30s.” On that reading, not one of the three is actually overdue. Prince is the closest and he is 29.
“The Estate looks forward to the time when all issues are resolved so that their trusts can be fully funded as Michael wanted,” the statement concluded.
Where the two versions collide
The gap between them is narrower than the headlines suggest, and it comes down to one question: is a partial distribution possible right now, safely, while the IRS matter remains open?
Paris says yes, and that Branca could and should have done it long ago. A spokesperson for her responded to the estate directly: “The Estate is once again deflecting from its own incompetence. Paris called for the trust to be partially funded, something Mr. Branca had the ability and obligation to do long ago. After years of delay, Paris had no choice but to step in herself.”
The estate says no, or at least not yet, and that the responsible course is to wait until the liabilities are known.
Both positions are reasonable on their face. Neither has been tested by a judge.
The wider battle
This is not an isolated filing. It is the latest round in a dispute that has been building for over a year.
In her petition, Paris alleges that after she began challenging the estate’s administration, her objections were met with public criticism, litigation, and a multimillion-dollar reduction in the money provided to her and her siblings. The estate denies reducing payments at all.
In May, a Los Angeles judge sustained an objection from Paris and ruled that $625,000 in bonus payments made by the executors to outside law firms in 2018 had to be returned to the estate. Attorneys for the estate said they disagreed but respected the ruling, and emphasised the payments had not gone to the executors themselves. More recently, the estate has challenged Paris’s request for more than $1.1 million in her own legal fees.
The administration itself has also changed shape. Branca and John McClain were appointed co-executors after Michael passed away on 25 June 2009, aged 50. McClain passed away in May 2026, leaving Branca alone at the top of one of the most valuable estates in entertainment history.
What happens next
A judge will hear the request on 4 December. Paris is asking for the full $600 million, or whatever figure the court decides is appropriate.
Whatever the ruling, something unusual is visible here. An estate that has reportedly generated more than a billion dollars in cash, built on the work of a man who died when his youngest child was seven, and three adults in their twenties still waiting on paperwork to tell them what belongs to them.
Michael Jackson wrote the instructions. Twenty-four years after he signed them, a courtroom in Los Angeles is still working out what they mean.
Should the children get a partial distribution now, or is the estate right to wait until the tax bill is settled?
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