While America is busy being obsessed with DeflateGate, there’s some serious rich people palace intrigue going down in New Orleans. We’re talking Dynasty/Game of Thrones type sh*t, y’all.
To summarize: Tom Benson is an 87 year-old billionaire who owns the New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans. For some time now it was common knowledge that Benson was grooming his granddaughter, Rita, to take over for him running his sports empire when he died. But in 2012 signs of trouble started leaking into the public eye, with Tom Benson suspending Rita for a spell over her reported “sense of entitlement.” Then yesterday Jeff Duncan of the Times Picayune reported that Benson’s presumed heiress granddaughter had been booted out for good, instead handing over everything to his third and current wife, Gayle, in his will.
In a plan revealed to NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on Wednesday afternoon at the teams’ Metairie headquarters, (Tom) Benson said the change is necessary to “ensure the long-term stability and success” of the sports franchises and his other business interests.
(Rita) Benson LeBlanc’s offices at the teams’ Metairie headquarters recently have been vacated and her company-issued Mercedes-Benz and cell phone have been seized.
She has not participated in team-related business meetings since the end of the Saints’ 2014 season. A statement from Benson said, “Rita will not be involved in the ownership or management of the Saints or Pelicans.”
Hey, Steve Harvey…what do you think about *this* family feud?
In response, Rita, her mother and brother filed a lawsuit claiming that the old man is being controlled by a manipulative, gold-digging wife.
The legal battle lays bare the internal strife within one of Louisiana’s richest families and its highest profile business owners, pitting Benson and his wife of 10 years against his adopted daughter and her children.
The lawsuit seeking to block the succession change was filed in Orleans Parish Civil District Court at mid-day Thursday and assigned to Judge Kern Reese. It presents numerous claims that Benson is mentally and physically unfit to manage his personal or business affairs. The petitioners also are requesting an independent board-certified geriatric psychiatrist to examine Benson.
Renee, Rita and Ryan LeBlanc, are named as petitioners in the suit, which claims the 87-year-old Benson’s declining health is much worse than publicly known and has rendered him unfit to manage his personal affairs or the business of the New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans.
The suit attempts to paint Gayle Benson, 67, as a gold-digging opportunist who has taken advantage of her husband’s unfit state of health and ostracized family members in grasping for power and riches.
Thoughts, Steve Harvey?
Additionally, NOLA.com published the letter Tom Benson sent to Rita, her mother and brother to inform them that they was being 86ed. It is below…
Steve Harvey, a weary nation needs your take on all this…
As a lifelong New Orleans Saints fan — and as a rabid New Orleans Pelicans fan — and someone who has spent most of his life living in south Louisiana, I feel the need to add my proverbial two cents, so let me say this: I know a lot of people in New Orleans, and I have never heard a bad word spoken about Gayle Benson (conversely, people usually speak of her in glowing terms). Take that and do with it what you will.
