A Battle Over Tony Bennett’s Estate Is Raging in Two NYC Courthouses

He left his heart in San Francisco.

Less famously, and in the final years of his life, he left his daughters with no say over his fortune — fueling an estate battle that spans two Manhattan courthouses and is still raging two years after his 2023 death.

Legendary singer Tony Bennett was 90 years old and performing with his friend Lady Gaga at packed concert halls in late 2016, when he signed the final versions of his will and family trust. His widow and third wife, Susan Crow Bennett, would inherit $5 million, with the remainder of his multimillion-dollar estate to be split evenly among his four children.

There was no even split, though, when it came to running the estate.

Documents made public in the siblings’ ongoing war over his assets show that Tony Bennett favored his two sons (from his first marriage) over his two daughters (from his second marriage) when it came to managing the concert earnings and royalty revenue streams of his seven-decade career of recording and performing.

Under the 2016 trust agreement — signed by Tony Bennett in the same year he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and with his attorney of three decades present as a witness — sons Danny and Daegal Bennett could manage his money as estate trustees in the years before and after his death, but daughters Johanna and Antonia could not.

Nor were the daughters entitled to any say over how the estate was run.

Johanna, 55, of New York City, and Antonia, 51, of Los Angeles, declined through a spokesman to comment on the ongoing estate battle.

But they argue in court papers that only after their father’s death did they learn there is just $12 million in the estate.

Where did all his money go, they are now asking in Manhattan’s Surrogates’ Court and New York Supreme Court.

Tony Bennett was getting at least $100,000 for each appearance in the 15 years before his last concert in 2022, lawyers for the sisters allege. His fee was far higher, they argue, for blockbuster shows like his two concerts with Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall in September 2016, a month before he signed the final family trust agreement.

The sisters’ lawyers estimate the singer earned at least $100 million in appearance fees from these performances. Yet the estate left to the four siblings is valued at under $7 million, the lawyers said last year. (That’s what remains of the $12 million after a $5 million widow’s inheritance mandated in the couple’s prenup.)

The Surrogate’s Court case demands a full accounting from the singer’s longtime business and personal manager, Danny Bennett, 71. The singer’s eldest child, Danny Bennett had sole power of attorney and was the family trust’s only trustee upon the singer’s death, in 2023, at age 96.

As part of that case, the sisters are also demanding all financial records for Danny Bennett’s 2022 sale of their father’s paintings, royalty streams, name-and-likeness rights, and memorabilia ranging from his Army dog tags to a signed Frank Sinatra photograph — “The Best g.d. pop singer I’ve ever heard!” Sinatra inscribed.

The sisters alleged last year that Danny Bennett paid himself more than $2 million in commission on the bulk sale, while giving them “a single modest distribution” of $245,000 each. The sisters “still do not have complete information about the transaction,” their lawyers alleged last year.

The sisters’ related March 2025 lawsuit in New York Supreme Court seeks a similar full accounting, plus an unspecified cash award and to have Danny Bennett removed as trustee due to his alleged “unlawful conduct.” The lawsuit also names younger brother Daegal and Susan Crow Bennett as defendants without alleging wrongdoing on their parts.

Danny Bennett has countered in court papers that his decisions were for the benefit of the family trust, that the sisters’ estimates of their father’s income and financial worth are grossly exaggerated, and that he has provided far more accounting than he was obligated to.

“He trusted me not to steal from him. And I did not,” Danny Bennett wrote in a February court filing. He declined to comment for this story, except through his attorney.

“This litigation only serves to distract from Tony Bennett’s illustrious and unprecedented success and legacy,” the attorney, Eve Rachel Markewich, told Business Insider.

“We have answered and addressed the specious allegations in court papers,” she said. “But rather than lending credence to them by commenting outside of the litigation context, our client prefers to concentrate on celebrations of Tony’s upcoming centennial in 2026.”

The beloved performer was born in 1926 in Queens, New York; he earned 20 Grammys and recorded 50 albums in the years since his first hit, “Because of You,” in 1951.

For “good and sufficient reasons”

The 2016 Bennett Family Trust Agreement specifically barred Johanna Bennett and Antonia Bennett from ever serving as trustees for the estate.

“Neither a daughter of the Grantor nor a descendant of a daughter of the Grantor may be appointed as a Trustee,” the trust agreement reads, with “grantor” referring to Tony Bennett. This was done “for good and sufficient reasons best known to the Grantor,” the trust agreement also reads, without elaborating.

Neither son was barred from being a trustee.

“Clearly,” Danny Bennett wrote in a February court filing, “Tony did not want his daughters to have any involvement, whatsoever, in his affairs or his business, during his life or after his death.”

Legal experts say such setups are not unusual. High-wealth, multi-heir families often create trusts that divide assets equally but limit decision-making, putting just one sibling in charge to avoid squabbling, said Mordy Mandel, a trust and estates attorney in New York City for 30 years.

Otherwise, “you have the other siblings always arguing, ‘How dare you sell that!'” said Mandel.

Parents commonly see different strengths in their children, assigning one child control over financial decisions, for example, and another over healthcare decisions, said Alan E. Sash, who handles trusts and estates at Bushell, Sovak, Kane & Sash in Manhattan.

Both attorneys have long experience with New York estate and trust law, and reviewed Tony Bennett’s final will and trust for this story. They confirmed that the documents limited Johanna and Antonia’s financial role to collecting their 25% bequests. They also said the sisters have every right to demand an accounting now.

“Danny had no legal obligation to tell his siblings how the trust was being managed,” Sash said. “But it may have been wise to do so along the way, so that there’s no surprises later on,” as is alleged to have happened here, he added.

Nothing but praise

Tony Bennett’s lawyer, Philip J. Michaels, who witnessed the singer’s 2016 signing of the final will and trust agreement, declined to comment on the estate battle or this story.

But the performer himself expressed nothing but confidence and gratitude toward his eldest son in the decades before Alzheimer’s took its toll.

“I love being managed by my son,” Tony Bennett told Billboard Magazine a quarter-century into their client-manager partnership, and at a time when he was selling out 100 dates a year.

“We get along great. Danny had me so set up, I could have retired five years ago,” the singer added in that 2006 interview. “But I’m still not finished with what I have to do.”

At awards ceremonies throughout the years, the singer called his son and manager to the stage to share credit, including for his comeback Grammy Award in 1995.

“Tony was unrelenting in his praise of Danny during his lifetime, and credited Danny with turning around his career after he hit bottom in the late 70s, including a near-fatal cocaine overdose and financial disaster that caused the IRS to try to seize his home in Los Angeles,” the son’s lawyers wrote in a court filing from November.

Both cases appear to be in their early days.

The Surrogate’s Court case, seeking only a thorough financial accounting, includes hundreds of pages of documents from the sisters’ original 2024 lawsuit against Danny Bennett. The paperwork from that lawsuit was transferred to the Surrogate’s Court in late July.

The 2025 lawsuit, meanwhile, may remain on ice until December 15, the deadline for Danny Bennett to file a response or an application to transfer that case, too, to Surrogate’s Court.