Chris Cornell’s widow, Vicky Cornell, has reportedly filed a lawsuit against her late husband’s band, Soundgarden. Cornell argues that Soundgarden is not paying her late husband’s estate royalties, and is trying to extort her into handing over 7 unreleased recordings. The claims add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a report by TMZ.
Cornell filed new legal documents against Soundgarden with the help of celebrity attorneys Marty Singer and Jams Sammataro. The documents were reported on Monday morning, revealing that Cornell believes the remaining members of Soundgarden are intentionally withholding money that she go to herself and Chris Cornell‘s children.
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In the documents, Cornell calls their lack of payment an “unlawful attempt to strong-arm Chris’ Estate into turning over certain audio recordings created by Chris before he passed away.”
Cornell is reportedly in possession of seven never-before-released recordings, which are some of her late husband’s last works. However, she feels Soundgarden has no right to them.
Cornell wrote that these songs are “solely authored by Chris; contain Chris’ own vocal tracks; and were bequeathed to Chris’ Estate,” which is controlled by her and used to care for Cornell’s young children.
Cornell even claims that she offered to work with Soundgarden to release the tracks in such a way that respects her late husband’s wishes, with the help of his producer. She claims that the band refused, wanting to put out the music on their own terms.
Cornell cites a recent Sirius XM interview where Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil said that there is an “obstacle” stopping Soundgarden from releasing their final album with Cornell. While Thayil never named Vicky Cornell in the interview,” she argues that he was trying to stir up the band’s “loyal, rabid fan base” into harassing her.
The band argues that they were all working with Chris Cornell on the new songs before he passed away, and even said that “the entire band was feeling very positive about their rekindled artistic energy and creativity” at the time. Cornell says that these are just more lies.
So far, the band has not commented on Cornell’s new lawsuit. However, she has posted about the ordeal on Instagram, saying that her family has been the “silver lining during the storm.”
“This was not the way I would have chosen to move forward. But I will not be pushed aside for someone else’s convenience or gain,” she wrote. “I will not sacrifice our children’s futures for someone else’s greed. And I will not let someone else make me feel shame because the man I loved was taken from all of us too soon.”
