Prince's sister says there's no will, could lead to delirious estate fight

TYKA NELSON soon may be a very rich woman.

Prince's 55-year-old sister, his only surviving full blood relative, believes that the Great Purple One didn't leave a will. That places her at No. 1 on the inheritance chart.

To protect Prince's estate from the always-circling vultures, however, Tyka wisely asked a Minnesota court Tuesday to appoint Bremer Trust as special administrator to oversee his Paisley Park empire. Court documents say Bremer Bank provided financial services to Prince for many years.

Without an administrator, "Controversy" surely will be more than a song.

Tyka's documents don't estimate how much Prince's estate may be worth, but he made hundreds of millions of dollars thoughout his four-decade music career. While his cash-on-hand is in question, Prince owned a dozen properties around Minneapolis, mostly rural land and houses for relatives, worth about $27 million, according to public records.

Following his death, his popularity has been sign o' the times: In just three days, fans purchased 2.3 million of his songs and "Purple Rain" was the top-selling song of the week.

Add in countless licensing opportunities and a vault reportedly filled with unreleased audio and video and running Prince Inc. may be a bigger job than ever.

If Prince left no will or trust, divvying up his fortune could get complicated, said Susan Link, a Minnesota probate lawyer. Mark Roesler, CEO of CMG Worldwide, which handles licensing for the estates of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and other late stars, estimates that Prince's post-mortem earnings could match that of Elvis Presley, whose estate made $55 million in 2015, according to Forbes magazine.

"He was as big as they get," Roesler told the Associated Press late last week. "Will there be a business built up around Prince 60 years from now like James Dean? The answer is unequivocally, 'yes.' "

Court fights in recent years, however, suggest Prince may have been spending money faster than a little red Corvette. When he was court-ordered to pay $4.4 million to a perfume company that said he bailed on a deal, he never did. Instead, plaintiff lawyers went searching for assets, found about $3 million in various Minnesota bank accounts and used court orders to freeze them, according to Brian Slipakoff, a lawyer who represented the perfume maker. Prince later settled for a lower amount.

"It doesn't suggest there was oodles of cash lying around," Slipakoff said last week.

Prince encountered tax difficulties several times, including owing back taxes to France in 2012, which he paid, and overdue property taxes in 2010. In 2013, the IRS filed a federal tax lien against him in Minnesota for $1.6 million.

Records show that he was up to date on his Minnesota property taxes when he died.

South Jersey's Kelly Ripa came back to work Tuesday, reported TV critic Ellen Gray. Like a boss.

Walking onto the set of Live with Kelly & Michael hand in hand with co-host Michael Strahan, Ripa received a standing O from the studio audience, at one point crossing her hands over heart.

"Guys, guys, guys. Our long national nightmare is over," she said.

"I'm fairly certain there are trained professional snipers with tranquilizer darts in case I drift too far off message," Ripa joked, adding that "I needed a couple of days to gather my thoughts," without explaining that she was responding to being blindsided by the news that Strahan would be leaving the show for a fulltime gig at Good Morning America.

"After 26 years with this company, I think I earned that right," she said.

Ripa said "apologies have been made" and that her reaction had "started a much greater conversation about communication and consideration and most important respect in the workplace," and that "our parent company [Disney ABC] has assured me that Live is a priority."

"This is entertainment. It's supposed to be entertaining," said Ripa. "I just want to say one thing: My dad, [Joseph Ripa] who was a bus driver for 30 years, thinks we're all crazy. I think he's right."

Returning to her seat next to Strahan, Ripa noted that Prince had died in her absence and reminisced about the time she and friends bought scalped tickets to a Prince concert at the Spectrum in Philly.

* E! News reports that Josh Herdman, who portrayed Draco Malfoy's righthand man Gregory Goyle in all eight Harry Potter movies, made his amateur debut as an MMA cage fighter this weekend, defeating Janusz Walachowski in London.

When your father is a Death Eater how many career options do you really have?

- Daily News wire services

contributed to this report.

gensleh@phillynews.com

215-854-5678 @DNTattle