Paul McCartney's kids in multi-million lawsuit over art collection

Paul and Linda McCartney's children are currently embroiled in a bitter lawsuit against family members over the sale of Linda's father's art collection. Britain's Sunday Times reports that Heather, Mary, Stella and James McCartney, along with three other relatives -- presumably Linda's brother and sisters -- are being sued by their grandfather Lee Eastman's step-children for part of the proceeds from the sale of Eastman's art collection. The collection was sold at auction late last year for over $47 million at Christies. Eastman, a legendary entertainment lawyer, died in 1991.

Proceeds from his collection, which included works by Picasso, Matisse, de Kooning among many others, are being contested by the three sons of his second wife, Monique Sprayregen-Eastman, who died last year.

The lawsuit, which was filed in New York State Supreme Court last month by Paul, Peter and Philip Sprayregen, claims that their mother jointly built the collection with Eastman and that as her sole heirs, they are entitled to a cut.

Linda's mother Louise Eastman died in a plane crash in 1961.

Linda McCartney died in 1998 of cancer. She had three younger siblings -- John, Laura and Louise.

John Eastman -- also an entertainment lawyer -- was briefly the Beatles' chief counsel along with his father in 1969. Lee Eastman was responsible for urging McCartney to invest his fortune in songwriting copyrights. It's the money generated from McCartney's MPL Communications company that generates most of the money in his reputed billion dollar empire.
Submit the above story to:

Del.icio.us   Digg   reddit   StumbleUpon   Facebook