Nate Dogg‘s oldest son is clashing with his father’s widow over closing the probate in order to pay out all of his beneficiaries.
According to documents obtained by In Touch Weekly, Naijiel D. Hale has asked a court to shut down LaToya Calvin’s plea to postpone closing the probate to explore whether the beneficiaries “could agree to a common mechanism for managing the primary asset left in the estate: [Nate’s] music rights.”
The estate was was recently settled and ready to be paid out, but LaToya wants to hold off in order to bring in a music manager named Brian Shafton to take over as a new administrator of the estate. She says he’d be able to help with the music rights and “various options and issues being considered and navigated.”
Naijiel doesn’t think this is necessary, nor that the probate should be delayed.
His lawyer wrote in the filing, “The Estate has provided a de facto common management mechanism for these music rights since the Decedent’s passing in 2011. While the beneficiaries appear to agree in principle that distributing the Music Rights in a piecemeal fashion pro rata to each beneficiary does not allow them to maximize the value of the Music Rights, there is a disagreement over what that common management structure should entail.”
Instead, Naijiel said he and Nate’s eight other 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren already have a plan in place for music management when the estate closes and the case should not drag on any longer.
His lawyer added, “Naijiel does not agree to the proposal, as it would only serve to prolong the long overdue closure of this matter. This Estate has been open for over 11 years. Continued Court oversight is not in the beneficiaries’ interest, nor is it the role of the Court to administer the royalties from the Music Rights indefinitely.”
The court has yet to rule.
The estate was first settled back in January 2024, and was determined to have a final value of $2.7 million – to be disbursed evenly between LaToya and Nate’s nine 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren.
The administrator of the estate also confirmed that all of the “Nobody Does It Better” singer’s debts — including an outstanding IRS bill of $144,000 — had been paid off, and no further obligations were necessary to be fulfilled by the survivors.
When Nate Dogg died in 2011, he died intestate (that is, without a will), and therefore, didn’t have provisions in place for the 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren he had with several different women.
What’s more, LaToya nominated herself as the executor of the estate, and Nate’s 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren have been battling her in court ever since, claiming that Nate Dogg was actually looking to divorce Calvin before he died.
