Paris Jackson wins court order for $625K to be returned to Michael Jackson’s estate

Paris Jackson has landed a significant legal victory in her long-running dispute over Michael Jackson’s estate, with a Los Angeles judge ordering that $625,000 in bonus payments be returned.

The ruling, issued on Wednesday May 13, cuts to the center of the fight Paris has been waging for months over how her father’s finances have been handled since his death in 2009. She has accused co-executors John Branca and John McClain of mismanaging estate money, lacking transparency and spending estate funds wastefully. Her objections have also extended to the new Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, which she has described as a risky investment and, in her words, “troubling” in terms of how much estate money was being used to finance it.

Branca and McClain have consistently pushed back. Last month, they called Paris’s claims “meritless,” and their legal team has repeatedly framed the estate’s finances as a model of profitable stewardship rather than abuse. Now, according to court documents obtained by People, the judge sided with Paris on one specific point: bonus payments totaling $625,000 (£468,380), made by Branca and McClain to third-party law firms, must be returned to the estate.

“Ms. Jackson’s objection to the $625,000 of bonus payments made in the second six months of 2018 is sustained. The bonus payments are not approved; they are disallowed. The payments shall be returned to the estate.”

The court filing also said Paris is entitled to “bring a motion for her reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs” tied to the objection.

A spokesperson for Paris told People after the ruling that she has “always been focused on what’s best for her family” and called the decision a “massive win for them.” The rep added: “After years of delay, the Jackson family will finally get the transparency and accountability measures Paris has fought for,” while also accusing Branca of “engaging in sexist, scorched-earth tactics against a beneficiary.”

The estate’s attorneys responded that they “disagree” with the ruling but “fully respect it and plan to move forward accordingly.” They also argued that the court had recognized the work of the executors and their outside counsel, saying the pair “created real and substantial generational wealth for the estate’s beneficiaries.”

In the same statement, the executors’ legal team noted that the court had previously approved other bonuses over the years for “extraordinary services,” and said this was the first time such payments had been challenged. They added that outside counsel had always agreed to return any money if payments were not approved. “And, to be clear, none of the $625,000 in bonuses… were paid to the executors,” the statement said, stressing that the court had not found any inappropriate payments to themselves.

Paris’s objections to the biopic have been central to the wider dispute. When she called the film’s financing risky, one attorney for the executors pointed to the commercial success of Michael Jackson-related projects they had overseen, including the 2009 documentary Michael Jackson: This Is It.

Her legal filing also took aim at Branca over what it described as a failure to account for the significance of a 1994 deal and a $20 million settlement with the family of Jordan Chandler. That agreement barred any depiction of the then-underage boy’s relationship with Michael Jackson and the allegations of sexual abuse. Paris and her lawyers argued that because of that oversight, the biopic’s original script presented the Chandler allegations from Jackson’s perspective, which they said violated the blackout clause and led to expensive reshoots.

The co-executors’ legal team rejected that version of events and accused Paris of making “irrelevant and highly incendiary, personal attacks” and filing “false and frivolous objections.” They also said she would “continue to benefit substantially from the tireless work of the Executors” and had “already received roughly $65 million in benefits [and] stands to inherit many hundreds of millions of dollars more.” Paris’s team called that figure “outright false.”

The biopic itself has remained a separate flashpoint. In 2025, Paris said she had “zero per cent involvement” with the film after actor Colman Domingo claimed in an interview that Paris and her brother Prince were “very much in support” of it. Later that year, she filed a lawsuit alleging that her inheritance from Michael Jackson had been “mismanaged,” and in 2026 she posted an update about where she stands with Domingo after the fallout.