LEILA FADEL, HOST:
There is a legal fight over Dolly Parton's estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars. A judge in Tennessee has granted a temporary restraining order against Parton's nephew and former head of security less than a month after she died. Her longtime manager asked the court to intervene. The court filing accuses that nephew, Bryan Seaver, of threats, extortion and intimidation.
Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The New York Times who covers the South from Nashville and she joins me now to talk about this. Good morning, Emily.
EMILY COCHRANE: Good morning.
FADEL: Thanks for being here. So Dolly Parton's husband, Carl Dean, died last year and she had no children. So tell us more about who is fighting over her estate and what their relationship is to Parton.
COCHRANE: Absolutely. I think something like this is always complicated after someone dies.
FADEL: Right.
COCHRANE: And here we're talking about a beloved entertainment superstar who brought a lot of family into this sprawling business empire. Here, in this case, I think listeners would recognize Bryan Seaver, her nephew, because he was the one who delivered the news of her death from cancer last month in this film video. He served as her head of security for not only her but her properties for about the last two decades. But in these court filings, we see Danny Nozell, her longtime manager, now trusted with this corporation that is running all of these entertainment properties and business endeavors after her death, accusing him of, quote, "an obscene, deliberating and escalating campaign of threats" to obtain money from the estate.
FADEL: Now, Seaver was fired as head of security last week. Do you know if this is because of these accusations?
COCHRANE: The court filings indicate that they're related. And one of the reasons why Nozell, under this corporation She's Alive LLC, asked for the restraining order and asked for a court to weigh in, they cited that security experience and, you know, the amount of weaponry and details he understood about the business and the operation as a reason for intervention.
FADEL: In the court documents, are there more details around those accusations against Seaver?
COCHRANE: Yes. There are screenshots of text messages that are said to have been sent by someone identified as Mr. Seaver. A couple of the messages are profane. At one point, one of the messages said that he would become, quote, "the hand of retribution for my entire family" and a couple of other things, and also emphasizing his experience in security and having weaponry at hand.
When we reached out to Mr. Seaver to talk about this, he said that those messages had been taken out of context. He denied threatening the estate and said they'd essentially been twisted. It was the, quote, "contrived, out-of-context" explanation.
FADEL: What have others in Dolly Parton's inner circle said about this? I mean, how have they reacted to this now pretty public and ugly battle?
COCHRANE: I think one of the reasons why a glimpse of this fracture in core (ph) is so striking is because Dolly's circle was fairly private. It's unusual to hear or see anything like this come out of the family. So we haven't seen much. It seems to largely be in court documents between the manager and Mr. Seaver.
FADEL: And how long could this court case last?
COCHRANE: That's unclear, but there is a hearing scheduled for next month in Nashville, where Dolly lived and the - much of the enterprise is based.
FADEL: Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The New York Times. Thank you for your time.
COCHRANE: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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