Paris Jackson’s Lawyers Allege Michael Jackson’s Estate Used Legal Tactics to Make Things ‘As Expensive as Possible’ for Her

Mar 17, 2026 by apost team

The legal battle between Paris Jackson and the people running her late father's estate is heating up — and the latest development is one that's hard to ignore. On Feb. 26, 2026, Paris filed new court documents in Los Angeles, pushing back against a bill of more than $115,000 in lawyers' fees that the executors of Michael Jackson's estate are now asking her to cover.

To understand what's going on, here's the simple version. Paris has been fighting for more transparency into how her father's estate is being managed — specifically, about certain bonus payouts from 2018 that she believes weren't handled properly.

In response, the estate's executors filed a legal motion against her in November 2025 designed to shut down her challenge. That motion was approved by the court, but according to Paris' lawyers, it didn't actually change anything meaningful about her case.

Her legal team argues that the motion was essentially a procedural move that accomplished nothing — her original requests remained unchanged after it was filed. And now, on top of that, the executors want Paris to foot the bill for it.

Paris’s attorneys say the whole thing was unnecessary from the start. The broader context makes that argument harder to dismiss: in October 2025, documents filed by the executors — John Branca and John McClain — revealed that Paris had received approximately $65 million in benefits from her father's estate.

But for Paris, this fight has never really been about the money she's received. It's about accountability for how the estate is being run. 

So what exactly is Paris being asked to pay for? The executors' lawyers are seeking $93,924.63 in fees plus an additional $1,238.39 in costs — all tied to the legal motion that her own attorneys say changed absolutely nothing. Add in other related costs, and the total climbs past $115,000, PEOPLE reported. But the detail that really stands out in Paris' latest filing is who did the legal work.

Her attorneys allege that the same law firms whose payments Paris is currently questioning were the ones brought in to fight against her. In other words, the firms at the center of her transparency complaint were then paid even more money — this time to push back against her challenge. "Executors allowed two of the same law firms who received improper payments to attack Paris," the filing states, noting that those firms were paid an additional $115,355.52 for that work.

It's a detail that cuts to the heart of why Paris says she started fighting in the first place. PEOPLE reached out to the attorneys for Michael's estate for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication. Paris is a beneficiary of her father's estate and has every legal right to question how it's being managed. What started as a request for greater oversight has turned into a drawn-out, costly courtroom fight. And according to her legal team, that was no accident.

"The SLAPP (lawsuit) was a waste of resources that executors had a duty to avoid and likely could have avoided," her filing alleges, according to PEOPLE, with the bottom line being that the whole thing was designed to make the process "as expensive and time-consuming as possible for Paris." 

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Did you know about Paris Jackson's legal battle with her father's estate? Do you think she is right to fight for more transparency over how it's being managed? Let us know in the comments and pass this on to your family, friends, and other Michael Jackson fans out there!