What Did George Harrison Leave to His Sister in His Estate Plan?

I am an estate planning attorney in New York, sometimes celebrity situations can help us plan for the future.

Ex-Beatle George Harrison promised to take care of his sister, Louise, for the rest of her life. She thinks he’d be horrified to know that she no longer gets a pension. Even so, she says she’s not upset about it. She did share the one regret she had, though.

MSN’s recent article entitled “George Harrison’s Sister Said He Would Have Been ‘Horrified’ to Learn She Was Cut Off by His Estate” says that in the 1990s, Harrison and Louise had a fight over a bed-and-breakfast. She converted her Illinois home into a bed-and-breakfast called “A Hard Day’s Night.” Louise didn’t own the establishment but used her name and connection to George to promote it. He didn’t appreciate this, and the siblings lost contact.

Before his death, though, the two siblings reconnected. Louise drove to New York to visit him in the hospital, where George Harrison was getting treatment for cancer.

“We were able to look into each other’s eyes again with love,” she told the Liverpool Echo in 2001. “It was a very, very positive and loving meeting. I felt very much at peace as I drove home after seeing him. I hated seeing him in that shape when he had been such a vital, wonderful man. But he still had his humor. It was distressing, but also I knew that he was on his way, back to where he belonged.”

In 1980, George Harrison set up a pension for Louise and paid her $2,000 every month. He told her that he wanted to take care of her.

“My second husband was an alcoholic. Both of my husbands were alcoholics,” Louise told the Daily Mail in 2016. “I had been beaten up a few times. George said to me, ‘Don’t go get married again. You don’t seem to choose the right people very well. Let me fix you something to live on.’ It was supposed to be a lifelong pension. It was a small amount. That was fine. That was okay.”

A year after Harrison’s death, however, his estate unexpectedly cut her off. Louise says she never knew why. While she thought her brother would have been upset, she said that she tried not to be.

“George would’ve been horrified knowing I was cut off,” she said. “It was such a small amount. And I think he left something like $300 million. Let’s put it this way, some people were more into money than I was. Money is not the most important. I learned that from George.”

“I live modestly, I don’t hold anyone responsible for me and I’m happy to live like that,” she said.

Reference: MSN (Sep. 23, 2022) “George Harrison’s Sister Said He Would Have Been ‘Horrified’ to Learn She Was Cut Off by His Estate”