Inside the Late Rock God’s Inheritance Family Battle

On a wet Nov. 15, 2023, a small group of music and movie luminaries gathered on the Village Recorder, the famed studio housed in an previous Masonic temple in West L.A. the place the whole lot from Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk to Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle was recorded.

Amongst them had been Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese, Lily Gladstone, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne. They’d come to have a good time the lifetime of Robbie Robertson, legendary frontman of The Band, profitable solo artist and prolific movie rating producer for whom the studio was like a second house. Robertson had died three months earlier after an excruciating battle with prostate most cancers — lengthy in remission however again with a vengeance in 2022 — that had unfold to his backbone and mind. He was 80.

Scorsese emceed the memorial, by which he tearfully spoke of his brotherhood with Robertson. The director, 81, was a longtime collaborator of Robertson’s, having helmed the seminal 1978 rockumentary The Final Waltz, which captured The Band’s 1976 farewell present. Robertson went on to develop into Scorsese’s go-to soundtrack producer, engaged on such movies as On line casino, Gangs of New York and The Wolf of Wall Road.

Their remaining collaboration was the rating for Scorsese’s 2023 epic Killers of the Flower Moon, an particularly private undertaking for Robertson, who was born July 5, 1943, in Toronto to an Indigenous mom — Cayuga and Mohawk — who lived on the Six Nations Reserve south of town earlier than his delivery. The rating earned Robertson one of many movie’s 10 Oscar nominations. There have been performances on the Village Recorder memorial of the rating alongside traditional Band songs like “The Weight” and “The Night time They Drove Outdated Dixie Down.”

These in attendance wouldn’t have sensed a chill within the air. However Robertson’s three kids might really feel it. It hit the second the siblings — Alexandra Robertson, 56; Delphine Robertson, 54; and Sebastian Robertson, 50 — noticed Janet Zuccarini, 58, throughout the room. A gorgeous and pushed restaurateur from Toronto, Zuccarini was their stepmother — although had not been for very lengthy. She married Robertson on March 11, 5 months earlier than his demise.

The youngsters declare they weren’t advised of the marriage. As an alternative, they are saying, they had been invited to what they believed can be a dinner celebrating the couple’s fifth anniversary of relationship. Once they arrived at Robbie and Janet’s home, nestled on one of many winding Crest streets above the Beverly Hills Lodge, the shock was sprung: They’d tied the knot in a house ceremony that day.

“That was most likely the primary main crimson flag,” says Alexandra in a joint Zoom interview along with her siblings, all of them talking from their respective properties round L.A. “They’d by no means mentioned marriage.” Zuccarini, who wouldn’t remark for this text, disputes this account in her countersuits, claiming the youngsters had been alerted to the nuptials.

In line with Alexandra, her father “had simply been advised that the medical trial he was on had failed. He had stage 4 prostate most cancers. He was severely depressed. After which we stroll in and so they announce that they’re married. I imply, the alarm bells had been screaming in my head — however all we might do in that second was increase a glass.”

Till then, the whole lot appeared nice. Zuccarini made their father terribly glad, he had repeatedly advised them — although he hadn’t wanted to, because it was apparent by simply trying on the star-crossed lovers. “What’s mine is mine; what’s hers is hers,” was Robertson’s mantra at any time when the topic of the children’ inheritance got here up. The youngsters assert that Zuccarini assured Robertson that her restaurant empire — which incorporates Felix Trattoria on Abbot Kinney, the hotspot that reignited chef Evan Funke’s profession — was valued at greater than $100 million and that she wished nothing of his property, which he’d all the time supposed to depart to his children.

However within the weeks after his demise, the complete scope of the couple’s authorized association got here into focus. Zuccarini wished, per a contract signed by Robertson in March 2023, for his property (now managed by his kids) to proceed making his half of the funds on the property they bought collectively in 2021.

Robertson and Zuccarini purchased the four-bedroom modernist home, designed in 1947 by Beverly Hills architect Paul Laszlo and up to date by Case Research Architect Thornton M. Abelt, from Robbie’s good buddy, David Geffen. (Robertson and Geffen first obtained to know one another at a celebration at Geffen’s home within the Hollywood Hills in 1973, attended by Geffen’s then-roommate, Mitchell, in addition to Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty.)

The value of the home was $6 million. COVID-19 had rendered Zuccarini cash-poor on the time, with earnings from her eating places quickly down in early 2021, so Robbie agreed to entrance the whole lot of the $1.8 million down cost with proceeds from the sale of his earlier residence. Robertson figured he’d make up the distinction in decrease mortgage funds till he and Zuccarini each contributed an equal quantity to the acquisition.

After Robertson’s demise, he nonetheless owed $1.2 million on his half of the mortgage. And there have been month-to-month bills, too — gardeners, safety, insurance coverage, property taxes, even groceries and family provides. All of it added as much as about $50,000 a month. That’s some huge cash for the three children, all of whom earn modest paychecks working in music manufacturing and administration. By their very own admission, that they had anticipated to inherit extra from their father’s property — significantly after he offered his publishing catalog for $25 million in 2022. However the remaining sum was someplace within the low-seven figures.

Per the prenup — which incorporates each a premarital contract and a further doc that amended their present “tenant in frequent” (TIC) settlement protecting either side’s monetary obligations to the property — Zuccarini can be allowed to remain in the home till the tip of her life. The Robertson property, in the meantime, can be on the hook for these month-to-month funds so long as she lived there. Given Zuccarini’s age and very good well being — she performs tennis seven days every week — Robertson’s children did some fast math: Funds to Zuccarini over the following many years would price them upward of $7 million. They concluded that they had inherited a uncooked deal.

To say that association didn’t sit nicely with them can be an understatement. They insist their father was far too addled on a cocktail of highly effective pain-killing medicine — Oxycodone, methadone, anti-nausea treatment Zofran and appetite-stimulating antipsychotic Olanzapine — to completely comprehend what he was doing when he signed the amended TIC settlement. It was their understanding that upon his demise, both his property or Zuccarini would have the choice to purchase the opposite out; failing that, each events would collectively promote the home and cut up the earnings, they are saying. There was no fourth choice the place she stayed there for the remainder of her life and anticipated his kids to foot half the invoice.

However Zuccarini says Robertson knew precisely what he was signing and that he wished to make sure that she might stay of their dream house for so long as she wished, with out a rise in month-to-month funds.

After some tense conversations, the 2 sides seemingly got here to an deadlock.

A number of days earlier than the Village Recorder memorial, Alexandra texted Zuccarini. “She had been touring for 5 weeks, to Toronto and Italy, and he or she was lastly again,” Alexandra recollects. “I stated, ‘Can my siblings and I am going by a few of my dad’s issues?’ And he or she basically stated, ‘No. Not till that is resolved. I’ll throw some issues in a field for you.’ I used to be in a state of shock over how merciless and chilly that was.”

The Robertson kids hoped to clean issues over on the memorial. “I made a degree of claiming, ‘Go say hello to Janet,’ ” Alexandra continues, referencing her two teenage kids. “They made certain to say hello. And he or she simply appeared proper by them.”

Provides Delphine, “We tried to be cordial and welcoming. I leaned in and gave her a hug. I used to be about to ask her to Thanksgiving. I believed this had gotten out of hand in any case we’d been by collectively. And one thing simply stopped me from doing that. The next day, we acquired the litigation.”

The litigation she’s referring to is a declare in probate courtroom that sought to recuperate excellent funds, together with for Robertson’s cremation, demise certificates and invoices for flowers and catering — offered by Felix — for a house memorial. Not solely do the youngsters haven’t any intention of paying, they shot again with a lawsuit for elder abuse and interference with their inheritance in search of to void the tenancy settlement. At this level, Zuccarini upped the stakes, submitting one other go well with — one which claims she qualifies underneath the regulation as an omitted partner and is entitled to a 3rd of Robertson’s property. This consists of property in his belief, usually untouchable in probate proceedings, resembling his share of proceeds from the sale of his music catalog, the rights to his mental property and likeness and earnings from the work he did on Killers of the Flower Moon.

“The notion that Janet Zuccarini was something aside from a loving and devoted spouse to Robbie is a fiction drawn from the youngsters’s greed and entitlement,” her attorneys Gabrielle Vidal and David Grossman inform The Hollywood Reporter. In June, the restaurateur additionally sued David Jackel, executor of the property, and Adriane Hibbert, head of Robertson’s belief, for breach of contract.

The matter of Robertson v. Zuccarini has thus snowballed from a household disagreement into an property battle royale, with crisscrossing lawsuits and flying accusations of avarice and elder abuse. It entangles A-listers from the very best echelons of Hollywood’s music, movie and meals spheres.

It’s all-out battle.

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Zuccarini was raised in Toronto, considered one of three daughters of Giacomo Zuccarini, an Italian émigré and Canada’s first importer of espresso makers. Fascinated by cinema, she spent her early 20s residing in Rome, working as a casting agent at Cinecittà, the legendary movie studio the place the whole lot from La Dolce Vita to The Ardour of the Christ was made. She additionally earned cash tutoring Italian administrators in English and doing occasional additional work in movies like The Godfather Half III.

When she returned to Toronto within the mid-Nineties, she invested her financial savings in a well-located eatery referred to as Café Nervosa. She now owns 10 spots round Toronto, all of them working underneath the umbrella of her restaurant group, Gusto 54.

Her first foray into L.A.’s ultracompetitive eating scene got here with Felix Trattoria in 2017. Because of Felix, Funke is now a celeb chef — a charismatic Italian-cuisine genius who neatly fills the void left by Mario Batali, sidelined that yr by #MeToo accusations.

When Zuccarini enlisted him, Funke was on a downswing, having resigned in 2015 from Culver Metropolis’s Bucato after a spectacular and public flameout with its proprietor. (The restaurant didn’t survive the yr.) None of that bothered Zuccarini, who acknowledged Funke’s expertise for placing progressive spins on old-world Italian dishes.

“I like working with somebody who’s very proficient and has had a little bit of a setback,” Zuccarini stated in a 2023 Toronto Life profile. “They arrive again hungry.” Pitching him a glass-walled “pasta lab” the place he might work his magic nightly to an viewers of diners, she satisfied Funke to hitch her at Felix. The restaurant was an instantaneous smash, incomes rave critiques and filling up its 243 seats weeks prematurely.

It was at Felix that Zuccarini met Robertson in 2017, at a party thrown by Roots Canada co-founder Michael Budman for his spouse. Zuccarini was acquainted with the legendary music determine from her native Toronto, however not what one would name a fan. (Robertson was 23 years older than her, having peaked as a heartthrob rock star nicely earlier than Zuccarini had reached her teenagers.) Robertson was immediately smitten: Right here was a phenomenal, clever, self-made lady — and a minor star in her personal proper, with a powerful restaurant empire underneath her belt and a recurring position as a choose on Prime Chef Canada.

“I believed, ‘Oh, OK, perhaps she’s simply not fascinated with me,’ ” Robertson advised Toronto Life. However she was . Their courtship proceeded to unfold towards an elite, storybook backdrop — in Michelin-starred eating places, on personal jets and aboard Geffen’s $400 million superyacht. Felix Trattoria, in the meantime, turned the glad beneficiary of her social-status glow-up. Scorsese and DiCaprio popped up as patrons, as did Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and different ultra-starry members of Robertson’s entourage.

The Robertson kids had been supportive of the romance. “We thought she was nice,” says Alexandra. “We had been thrilled that our father wished us to get to know her, and we had been very clear that we embraced her into our household fold. She appeared to suit proper in. She appeared like she was an individual of substance, and we felt good about her. If our father was glad, we had been glad.”

Earlier than they met, the household — Robertson’s three children, six grandchildren and even the mom to his kids, his ex-wife, Dominique Bourgeois, his finest buddy till his demise — would collect each Sunday for lunch. Zuccarini was insistent they sustain the gatherings. “To her credit score, she inspired him to maintain this custom going,” says Alexandra. “She knew it was medicinal for him.”

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Not lengthy after the couple moved into Geffen’s former home in February 2021, Robertson confided to his son that he “wished to make an sincere lady” out of Zuccarini.

“One in all my oldest mates is a jeweler,” says Sebastian. “And my dad stated to me, ‘I need to get her a promise ring.’ ” Sebastian brokered a diamond that price within the low six figures from famed jewellery designer Anita Ko. “Within the course of, I talked to Janet and my dad fairly a bit. And in these talks, they each stated to me, ‘We’re by no means getting married.’ Janet stated to me, ‘I don’t need the state of California concerned in my private life,’ ” Sebastian continues.

That’s not how Zuccarini remembers it. She recollects fondly how Robertson obtained down on one knee at their house and introduced her with an “engagement ring” a couple of days shy of their fourth anniversary. “After the engagement, Robbie and Janet usually spoke about getting married on their fifth anniversary of relationship and mentioned Northern California and San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito as potential areas for the ceremony,” states Zuccarini’s criticism. “However almost six months after their engagement, Robbie’s most cancers progressed and Robbie and Janet determined to postpone marriage ceremony planning whereas they centered on Robbie’s remedy.”

The fairy story had led to July 2022, when, after two successive stomach surgical procedures, medical doctors discovered Robertson’s long-dormant prostate most cancers had aggressively returned. The medical doctors proposed a cutting-edge radiation remedy. By January 2023, Robertson’s medical doctors somberly advised him the remedy had failed and that the one avenue left was chemotherapy. They conceded his prospects had been grim.

“The most cancers had metastasized to his backbone and his vertebrae cracked,” recollects Alexandra. “So he then needed to have two again surgical procedures. It was traumatizing to see how a lot he suffered. I can not stress sufficient how sick he was. He was in power ache and discomfort. He was on huge quantities of ache treatment, opioids, THC. He was simply making an attempt to get by the day — and it was simply stunning that she thought it was a very good time to get married.”

In line with Robertson’s kids, Zuccarini started hounding their father to get married in February of that yr whereas he was present process chemo and his well being was dramatically deteriorating. She additionally set about having one other of her attorneys, Thomas Bacon of Bacon Legislation Group, draft a prenup and an modification to the already present TIC that rendered him liable for half of the house’s bills in perpetuity. Robertson gave the paperwork to his enterprise supervisor and actual property lawyer to vet, in response to Kevin Leichter, an lawyer representing the property. They advised him all of it appeared so as. Two days earlier than the nuptials, he signed.

“The rationale for the 2023 TIC Modification and Premarital Settlement was easy,” states Zuccarini’s petition. “Robbie and Janet knew that they had been getting married; they knew that Robbie had been battling prostate most cancers for 25 years; they knew that Robbie’s kids had been reliant on Robbie to help their existence; they knew that Janet’s money stream took a significant hit because of the pandemic; and so they knew that Janet wished to remain within the house that she created with Robbie for the remainder of her life. So Robbie and Janet advised counsel to draft up an settlement that might enable Janet to remain within the Gilcrest Property for so long as she wished and wouldn’t improve her month-to-month bills.”

Responds Alexandra, “What’s unconscionable about it’s that it seems to be a method, and it’s one other approach. It was throughout a time when my father was not studying and retaining data and he didn’t have correct authorized illustration.”

Zuccarini disputes this evaluation of her husband’s psychological acuity. “His complete medical staff, which is a who’s who of LA’s best medical medical doctors, stand able to testify that Robbie by no means declined cognitively,” states her omitted partner petition, filed Could 9 in L.A. Superior Court docket. “To not point out that Robbie was fairly actually engaged on his Academy Award-nominated rating to Killers of the Flower Moon on the identical time the Grownup Kids declare he was ‘unable to work, and even learn’ and ‘weakened in thoughts and physique.’ ” To underscore that reality, the lawsuit factors to a prolonged and intellectually sharp interview Robertson carried out with Selection within the final week of July 2023, simply days earlier than his demise.

However the Robertson kids say that’s a gross distortion of the info and level out that the rating was completed in 2022, earlier than his well being and psychological capability started to dramatically deteriorate. “The final recording session was in November 2022, and he was too sick to attend,” Alexandra recollects. The Selection interview, they add, was organized solely after Robertson canceled a deliberate press tour.

“The 2 greatest interviews had been New York Instances and Self-importance Honest, and he canceled each of them as a result of he couldn’t preserve his prepare of thought,” Alexandra says, including that “he muscled his approach by” his brief remaining interview. “His publicist and the supervisor helped to fill in any of the gaps.”

A point out in Zuccarini’s lawsuit of Robertson attending the movie’s premiere in July 2023, simply weeks earlier than his demise, was in actual fact a non-public L.A. screening held in June — the movie’s world premiere was in Cannes in Could, the L.A. premiere was in October — that needed to be rescheduled a number of instances due to Robertson’s failing well being. “I can’t perceive how they might put this in a authorized doc when it’s all simply refutable,” Alexandra provides.

Amid Robertson’s speedy decline, Zuccarini was additionally within the midst of readying her most formidable undertaking but — an 8,000-square-foot Italian eatery within the former Madeo area on Beverly and Robertson boulevards referred to as Stella. That includes meals by Canadian chef Rob Gentile, it opened in March after a number of delays — the identical month Stella was sued by a contractor. He claimed that he was stiffed on a $550,000 invoice for 5 months of labor he did earlier than his contract was terminated for failing to finish the undertaking on time or inside the finances, which he denied. The lawsuit settled two months later for an undisclosed sum.

Zuccarini additionally undertook an “in depth reworking and the acquisition of recent furnishings for the brand new house which she had gotten him to buy, and which he would solely reside in a short time,” in response to the Robertsons’ lawsuit. “She introduced his bookkeeper with expense after expense for 50 p.c reimbursement, in the end inflicting him to spend $175,957 on renovations and $338,131 on furnishings and furnishing within the yr earlier than his demise.”

The wedding occurred on March 11, 2023. Opposite to his kids’s claims of coercion, Zuccarini says Robertson was simply as enthusiastic as she was about getting married. Per her petition: “By early 2023, Robbie turned his consideration again to marriage ceremony planning and began discussing a vacation spot marriage ceremony in Japan or Italy. Recognizing that it could be troublesome to plan a vacation spot marriage ceremony and nonetheless make their desired marriage ceremony date of March 11, 2023, Janet prompt that they only make it occur on their fifth anniversary (as that they had all the time deliberate) at house with Janet’s restaurant, Felix, doing the catering. Robbie beloved the concept. Not lengthy after they arrived at this determination, Robbie and Janet attended their good buddy, David Geffen’s, eightieth party. Throughout dinner, Robbie enthusiastically introduced that he and Janet had been getting married. The banquet was attended by roughly fifteen folks and was lower than two weeks earlier than their marriage ceremony.” (The lawsuit doesn’t specify who was there or if they might be keen to testify.)

Regardless of the case, the youngsters weren’t current for the precise vows, nor was their mom, nor had been Robertson’s six grandchildren. The one household who had been in attendance for the “I dos” had been Zuccarini’s sister and her brother-in-law, who filmed the ceremony. Within the footage, Robbie seems too weak to face for his vows.

The subsequent day, Zuccarini posted a three-minute video to Instagram with the caption, “We obtained hitched,” and a diamond ring emoji. As a dizzying array of romantic photographs and well-known faces — Mitchell, David Byrne — fly by, Zuccarini says, “The personal planes, David’s yacht, New York Metropolis, St. Barts, the Hamptons, Grammy events, premieres, crimson carpets, extra crimson carpets, spending high quality time with legends and icons … You had been well worth the wait.” (She additionally extols their quiet instances collectively.)

In line with the youngsters, the day after the marriage announcement and social gathering, Robertson’s ex-wife, Dominique, referred to as Robertson, involved over what the wedding meant for his or her kids’s inheritance. “And he stated, ‘Nothing modifications,’ ” Alexandra recollects. “We signed a prenup. What’s mine is mine, what’s hers is hers.” By way of the home, “he stated to me and each my siblings on a number of events, ‘Janet has the correct to purchase you out, you should buy her out, otherwise you promote the home.’ “

However that’s not how Zuccarini remembers it. Her petition states, “Robbie sat his kids down earlier than he died to clarify precisely what he and Janet agreed she would obtain after his demise; and in that very assembly they shed tears of gratitude as a result of Robbie advised them that Janet wouldn’t be inheriting the whole lot of his property, however somewhat an curiosity in the home they shared and bought collectively. … The Grownup Kids now come searching for extra as a result of the hundreds of thousands that they’re anticipated to share usually are not sufficient. It’s the epitome of greed and entitlement.”

In Robertson’s remaining days, “we had been involved with Janet on a regular basis,” Alexandra recollects. “Via the night time, textual content messages, communication, assembly one another on the hospital, updates. ‘What can we do for you?’ I imply, actually imagining she was a member of the family, in a approach.” When Robertson lastly succumbed to his sickness on Aug. 9, 2023 — barely greater than a month after his eightieth birthday — there was “a palpable vitality shift,” Alexandra says, “which we chalked as much as, folks grieve in numerous methods.”

Zuccarini contends that if there was an vitality shift, it got here from the youngsters, who 4 days after Robertson’s demise met for lunch on the home to “go over home stuff.” After about an hour of dialog, “Sebastian advised Janet that their father ‘lived massive’ and that they ‘couldn’t afford the prenup.’ Janet was blindsided,” the lawsuit contends.

“I used to be shocked,” she stated in a courtroom declaration.

Earlier than the Village Recorder occasion, there was one other memorial, held Sept. 23 on the couple’s house. In line with the household’s lawsuit, Zuccarini catered that service and billed the Robertson property for $20,000. “Zuccarini thereby personally profited from the memorial service,” the lawsuit states. She additionally billed the belief for his cremation. Each invoices had been paid.

Says Sebastian: “After he handed, we didn’t have entry to his shirts, to his notepads, to the issues that you simply actually need to have close to you after you’ve misplaced somebody. We needed to undergo a authorized course of to get his private belongings.” Additionally amongst these belongings had been Robertson’s ashes.

Zuccarini counters that on the September memorial, the youngsters “commented on what a tremendous accomplice she was to Robbie and the way blessed he was to have her within the final years of his life. However the whole lot modified after that and by late October 2023, the Grownup Kids had been taking the place that neither they nor Robbie’s enterprise managers knew concerning the 2023 TIC Modification till a month after Robbie died.”

So what subsequent? The invention course of might take years, as Leichter pledges to overturn each stone on his path to revealing the true circumstances of the sprawling property battle. “There’s going to be many witnesses,” Leichter says. “The medical historical past could be very related right here. There’s lots of people concerned and numerous data to undergo.”

Zuccarini’s attorneys, in the meantime, scoff on the heirs’ claims. “Robertson’s kids had been hoping their father would offer them many extra hundreds of thousands than he left to them, so that they determined to not honor his settlement along with his beloved longtime accomplice and widow and have improperly filed a false and salacious lawsuit in superior courtroom,” Vidal and Grossman inform THR. “That lawsuit ought to have been filed in personal arbitration as required by the phrases of the contract they’re contesting, however the kids intentionally filed it in a public discussion board. Their determination to litigate their meritless claims within the press reeks of desperation and dishonors their father’s categorical needs. Janet and Robbie agreed that she can be permitted to reside within the couple’s house, with out rising her month-to-month prices, and that Robbie’s half of the home would go to his heirs when she died or offered her house. That’s it.”

The burden will in the end be on Leichter to show Robertson was cognitively incompetent when he signed the amended TIC contract — and that’s a excessive authorized hurdle to clear. And even when he does reach doing so, what then of the accompanying prenup, which ensures the rest of Robertson’s property to his kids however may very well be invalidated if Zuccarini prevails in her lawsuit, presumably entitling her to one-third of his property, her attorneys say? It’s a dangerous gambit and uncommon authorized conundrum for the Robertson kids: A win for them voiding the modification to the TIC might really lead to them dropping far more than they appeared to realize of their preliminary lawsuit as a result of it might doubtlessly additionally nullify the prenup, entitling Zuccarini to a share of the property. However that notion appears to not trouble the Robertson children, who stopped making mortgage funds on the home in July.

“There’s been some issues blocking us from correctly grieving,” says Sebastian, “an actual block maintaining us from creating a brand new relationship with our father.”

This story first appeared within the August 7 subject of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click on right here to subscribe.