Who inherited George Jones’s money?
Introduction
Of all the musical genres in the world, the country music genre is one of the most universally loved.
While many assume that it is primarily a music style enjoyed in America, country music has become a worldwide musical style to enjoy.
Many big-name stars have come and gone in this music niche, but one of the biggest names to ever write country music was George Glenn Jones.
If you are a country music fan, then there is a good chance you know who Jones is.
He wrote various songs across his career that achieved massive success, with his largest piece being “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” which gained colossal chart recognition.
One of the things that made Jones so successful was his unique voice and rather specific phrasing style.
To many, his music has been regarded as inspirational and hugely enjoyable.
Listen to a George Jones song, and you will do extremely well not to find yourself drawn into his music’s drama and nature. For that reason and many others, Jones is one of the most beloved names in country music.
Jones sadly passed away in 2013, and since then, various questions about his legacy have cropped up in the discourse around his career.
One question that has regularly come up concerns his legacy regarding his finances. Many people are interested in knowing what happened to his money.
For example, did George Jones leave his daughter any money?
Let’s look at the information available to understand exactly what happened to the financial legacy of Jones after he passed away.
Who was George Jones?
As mentioned above, George Jones was a hugely popular country musician.
Born on the 12th of September, 1931, Jones amassed an incredible career within the music industry both domestically in America and internationally.
His fame as a singer-songwriter and country musician made him one of the most famous musicians in the entire country music genre.
Having been referred to as one of the greatest country music singers ever, Jones enjoyed over 160 different chart successes.
He started his music career in 1955 and continued performing for many years.
His life was filled with challenges, including alcoholism in the 1960s.
This led to a musical career decline, and by the late 1970s, he was somewhat of a forgotten name in the music industry. However, his previous chart success ensured he was still a notable name in the country music scene.
Challenges At The Top
However, even the most successful musicians in the field can fall into personal challenges.
During the 1960s, the binge drinking habits of Jones, as well as his use of amphetamines, had seen him begin to become somewhat unreliable.
It significantly impacted his marriage to Tammy Wynette, leading to a divorce in 1976, and George struggled at times to return to his normal form and quality of music.
The 1960s and 1970s saw him tail off significantly from the success he had enjoyed at the peak of his career. Indeed, Jones suffered various challenges that alienated him from the industry that made him a success.
In an Independence Day event in 1976, Jones appeared in front of a thousands-strong audience of younger fans who might not have known his fame.
Despite the uncertainty, George managed to win the crowd over and was regarded as the best performer at the Willie Nelson Fourth Of July Picnic event in Texas.
This returned his name to the mainstream, and many assumed he was back to his best. However, his problems with alcoholism had seen him start to miss shows regularly, including cutting some well-hyped shows that deeply impacted his standing within the music industry.
Part of the problem for George at the time was what he felt was a condescending and sneering tone to his kind of music.
Jones was also an individual who was aware of the pitfalls of success in the music industry, and thus, he began to draw away from the music industry at a rapid pace.
What was Jones’ most famous song?
In the 1980s, Jones had suffered from a drought of chart music success, and large portions of the country music community wrote him off. However, this was when his greatest song came to life – He Stopped Loving Her Today.
This song was the redemption that Jones needed.
He started to slowly but surely take back control of his music career, and the song remained atop the charts for an incredible 18 weeks.
While Jones himself had admitted in the past that it was not his favorite work – he said it was morbid – he understood the appeal of the song and the fact it played a huge role in turning his career around.
George won awards for the music, and it helped him receive a renewal of his recording contract with CBS Records.
This led to a revival in his career and interest in his fame. However, a big part of his life turnaround came when he met Nancy Sepulvado.
Sepulvado was younger than Jones, but she was not a drinker and lived a very clean life.
This helped Jones leave his heavier drinking habits behind, and he could give up his reliance on other substances, such as cocaine. In 1984, he managed to do a show sober for the first time since the 1970s and the peak of his decline.
To help make up for many of the shows he had missed over the years, Jones began to do free presentations and help pay back many of the promoters who had put up with his no-shows during his peak years.
As the 1990s approached, Jones decided it was time to start reducing his musical output, and in the late 1990s, after a car crash incident, he vowed to give up drinking for good.
How did George die?
Jones was due to participate in one final concert in the Bridgestone Arena in November 2013.
It was expected to be his final musical performance, but he missed the show due to a fever and problems with his blood pressure. Sadly, after six days of intensive care, Jones died on the 26th of April 2013, aged 81.
His funeral brought many people arriving to speak about Jones and his amazing career.
This included many country singers like Kid Rock, Randy Travis, Ronnie Milsap, and more.
Other guests who eulogized for him at the funeral included the former First Lady, Laura Bush, and the Governor of Tennessee, Bill Haslam.
For some time after his death, many radio stations began to focus on playing his songs throughout the days and weeks after. It was considered the ideal tribute to one of the greatest country musicians ever.
Did Jones have a family?
During his musical career, romances were not rare for George Jones.
The country legend had been involved in various affairs, including more than one marriage.
He married his first wife, Dorothy Bonvilion, and had a daughter, Susan, with Dorothy.
His second marriage, to Shirley Ann Corley, saw two sons born – Jeffrey and Bryan. And he had another daughter, Tamala Georgette, with Tammy Wynette.
Out of all of his family, then, it is arguable that his youngest daughter, Georgette, is the one who has managed to carry on his family legacy in the music industry.
Born on the 5th of October 1970, Georgette has forged her path in the music industry and has roles as an actress.
She endured a tricky relationship with her father but admitted they had been working hard to improve that side of their relationship in the run-up to his death.
In fact, before his death, George and Georgette had managed to record a few duet tracks together.
They overcame their differences and found peace after a challenging father-daughter relationship.
His relationship with his daughter then steadily improved.
It could be argued that his relationship with Georgette was the best he had with any of his children. However, it would also be fair to note that his relationship with his other children has been less publicly discussed.
By the time he died, George and Georgette had managed to patch up many of the issues that had held back their relationship as father and daughter.
Though precious little of their recordings together have ever been released, it is nice to know that one of the most important country singers of all time could find peace with the people he loved the most before his life ended.
Did George Jones leave his daughter any money?
One of the most commonly asked questions about Jones comes down to what happened to his estate after his death. Many have wondered what happened to his home, wealth, and possessions.
When Jones died, he had written a will. In that will, he ensured that his wife at the time of his death, Nancy, was given their home and a pair of properties that Jones owned in the Brentwood and Nashville areas.
He also left Nancy a wonderful collection of jewelry and musical instruments. He even left her a car. However, according to rumors, Jones did not leave anything to his first daughter, Susan Smith.
This led to a 2015 lawsuit, where Smith sued her stepmother because she stopped Smith from spending time with her father during the latter years of his life.
In the end, after a long-running legal case, Smith was awarded around $2m in damages from the settlement. However, he did leave his daughter Georgette access to a bank account set up for her: within that bank account was around $50,000.
While that might not amount to the value that Smith managed to get through her settlement through the courts, it is still a sizeable sum.
A part of why that money was left to Georgette, though, might have been that she managed to build a highly successful career for herself.
Despite losing much of his wealth earlier in his career, Jones did tour regularly, even in the latter part of his life.
He could sometimes appear in as many as 50 shows per year, so it was clear that he had managed to build up a considerable sum of money towards the end of his life.
Georgette, though, has forged a musical career of her own that has allowed her to be more than just ‘the daughter of George Jones’ as many have claimed.
Final Thoughts
So, did George Jones leave his daughter any money? Yes, he did. It is believed that the country legend might have been worth as much as $35 million by the end of his life, though that has not been verified. Over the years, too, various accusations have been pointed at people who stole from Jones during his more challenging professional years.
According to Georgette, people using her father’s kindness and wealth to benefit themselves was a common occurrence in life.
Sadly, there were even times when he accused his daughter of being one of the people trying to steal from him. For example, in 2012, Jones commented that he felt like his daughter was ‘obsessed’ with money.
Jones accused Georgette of lying about him online and simply wanting to receive more money.
As has been shown, though, the pair managed to sort out a large portion of their disputes with one another, and by the end of his life, Jones was clearly in a better place with his daughter than he had been during this 2013 era.
While much can be said about a turbulent family dynamic – Jones had precious little contact with some of his other children, including his sons – by the end, George and Georgette enjoyed a more substantial relationship than they had at different times.
Many things happened, which both sides are not proud of, but by the end, things were at least cordial enough for Jones to leave his daughter some money.
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Lee Parry is a writer and blogger originally from Manchester, UK, and he has a B.A. in Modern Languages from Manchester Metropolitan University. Parry occasionally teaches English and spends most of his free time reading.