Nne Heche’s son claims a ‘will’ presented by his former partner is invalid because it is not signed by the late actress.
Homer Laffoon, 20, filed a petition to control his mother’s estate earlier this month after her death, which was objected to by James Tupper.
The youth’s petition was made on the basis that the actress had died without a will.
Court documents obtained by the PA news agency show that although Tupper has yet to disclose his specific objections to Laffoon’s legal team, he did submit an email which he referred to as a “will”.
Lawyers for the 20-year-old say the email in question “does not meet the legal requirements” for a valid holograph will.
“Mr. Tupper repeatedly refers to the email attached to the objection as a ‘will’,” state the documents, filed in addition to Laffoon’s original petition.
“However, in law, the email is not considered a holographic will or a formal witnessed will.
“E-mail does not meet the legal requirements for a valid holographic will because the material provisions of the purported will are not handwritten by the deceased.
“The email does not meet the legal requirements for a valid formal will because the email was not signed by the deceased and does not have two witnesses who signed the document while the deceased was alive. .”
The filing also claims that Tupper launched “personal attacks” on Laffoon ahead of an Oct. 11 hearing to further determine the administration of Heche’s estate.
The actress was involved in a serious car accident in Los Angeles on August 5, in which her vehicle collided with a building and caught fire.
She was declared brain dead on August 11 and was kept alive for three more days so her organs could be donated.
Heche, 53, was one of the biggest movie stars of the late 1990s, starring opposite actors such as Johnny Depp and Harrison Ford, and had worked steadily in film and television for more than three decades.
She was the former partner of American talk show host Ellen DeGeneres – the couple started dating in 1997 before splitting in 2000.
Heche later suggested that their public relationship led to her being blacklisted professionally, describing herself as “patient zero in cancel culture”.
She was married to Coleman Laffoon, a television cameraman, from 2001 to 2009, and had a relationship with actor Tupper from 2007 to 2018.
She had a son with each man.
