A struggle over control of Jimmy Buffett’s estate has locked family members into a legal battle headed for a trial in January, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“Lost in Margaritaville,” published in WSJ Magazine, delves into the legal battle over the Coral Gables Trust, which holds assets valued at more than $140 million, with some estimates as high as $275 million. Buffett established it with his wife Jane Buffett, as beneficiary and his business manager, Richard Mozenter, as co-trustee.

Buffett died Sept. 1, 2023. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame a little over a year later. The Wall Street Journal story opens with signs of family tension at that Hall of Fame celebration: Jane Buffett allegedly had her oldest daughter, Savannah Buffett, seated separately, and sent her a text questioning her loyalty and suggesting that she toe the line given that Jane Buffett was “standing between you and 75 million.”

During the ceremony, Savannah Buffett’s husband was caught on camera mouthing the words “F— you Jane,” which later came to Jane Buffett’s attention. “Say good bye to that 75 mil,” she allegedly texted her daughter.

The fundamental battle, however, is between Jane Buffett and Mozenter. She has accused him of concealing information about the trust while billing it for excessive fees, and of lowballing the amount of income it generates. He has depicted her as someone who has interfered in the trust’s business and who has demanded that the trust support her lavish lifestyle.

Court records in Palm Beach County, Fla., show that in addition to the suit and countersuit between Jane Buffett and Mozenter, there is a third suit involving family members. In that case, Jimmy and Jane Buffett’s two younger children, Cameron Marley Buffett and Sarah Delaney Buffett, have sued Mozenter.

No one in the Buffett family spoke on the record for the WSJ article. One person who did was actress Anjelica Houston, a regular summer guest at the Buffetts’ home in the Hamptons. She was there shortly before Jimmy Buffett’s death.

Referring to an incident that created tension between Jane and Savannah Buffett, Houston said, “it breaks my heart to see what’s happening between Savannah and Jane. Jimmy would never have wanted this.”

Jimmy Buffett has taken up a permanent position overlooking the Mobile waterfront, and it’s clear that sculptor Ben Victor understood the assignment.

A 7.5-foot-tall bronze statue unveiled Thursday morning outside the National Museum of the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t simply provide a static depiction of Buffett. He’s striding, not standing, with one bare foot in the air, his acoustic guitar raised high and his mouth open in song, and there’s a spirit of glee in the pose that makes him look like some kind of pied piper, which of course he was.

Victor told onlookers that when he was working in clay, he played the recording of the 2010 show that Buffett performed on the beach in Gulf Shores after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. “And that’s the clothing that you’ll see him in today when we unveil the bronze,” he said.

It’s all there: the “One Love One Ocean” T-shirt, the tricolor wristbands, the tiki-themed strap on his 12-string, and most of all, the “just come along with me and we’ll have a good time” vibe.

The unveiling comes just two days before the museum opens a 6,000-square-foot exhibition celebrating Buffett’s youth in Mobile and the one-of-a-kind career that followed.

Join us for the opening of Through the Lens, a special photography exhibit featuring Chris Lauber’s vintage concert photographs of Jimmy Buffett from the 1970s.

These aren’t just snapshots, they’re firsthand glimpses into a formative era, capturing the energy, spirit and evolution of an artist whose story would become forever connected to Key West and the Jimmy Buffett Photo Exhibit.

Meet Chris during this special opening reception for the Jimmy Buffett Photo Exhibit, hear some of the stories behind the photographs, and get an up-close look at this rare collection.

Friday, September 4th

4:15–5 PM

Pier House Resort & Spa | Lobby outside the Chart Room

FREE & open to the public

Can’t make the reception? The Jimmy Buffet Photo Exhibit will remain on display at Pier House throughout the festival weekend.

Come take a walk through a little piece of music history

During Labor Day Weekend, Margaritaville properties will celebrate the third annual Jimmy Buffett Day with events, programs, room packages (for stay dates August 3–September 27), limited edition retail offerings, beverage specials with commemorative cups (September 4–11), and more in support of Singing for Change, created by Jimmy Buffett, and other charitable organizations.

We hope you will find your way to a Margaritaville location during the celebration, but if you can’t, we encourage you to find a way to be of service to make an impact in your community.

This moment gives us the opportunity to recognize Jimmy Buffett’s legacy throughout Margaritaville by giving back to our communities. Most importantly, we honor Jimmy by doing what he did best — bringing people together, making a positive impact in meaningful ways, and carrying forward his enduring spirit as we “keep the party going”.

Celebrate Jimmy Buffett Day with our exclusive retail collection, available Monday, August 17 from the Margaritaville Store.

Explore a wide range of limited-edition specialty items, including t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, glassware, and accessories.

In the midst of all the bar raising, what impressed me the most was what Jimmy and Zac have most in common: Making people happy with music.

There will never be a time when that’s not a good thing. I brought Jimmy’s guitar and sang as proud as my God Given Limitations allow.

Thanks always to Jimmy Buffett and to ZBB for carrying on.

Meanwhile the Coral Reefers are gonna do the same starting tonight!!

“This Nash here was Jimmy Buffett’s,” Ransom said. “We have pictures to prove it. We also have a title with his name on it” Ransom said Buffett sold the car to a friend in Fort Lauderdale in 2008. The car later changed hands again in 2024 and sold for over $60,000.

The Nash Metropolitan is scheduled to be auctioned on Saturday July 25th at GAA Classic Cars in Greensboro.
https://www.gaaclassiccars.com/vehicles/45231/1958-nash-metropolitan

Vehicle Highlights

• Title Branded Not Actual Miles
• Previously Owned by Musician Jimmy Buffett (James William Buffett) in Key West, FL
• Originally Sold by Ty Houck, the Owner of Ragtops Motorcars in West Palm Beach, FL
• Buffett Sold the Car back to Ragtops in 2008
• Body Restoration and Repaint in 2008
• Body Restoration Included: New Metal Floor Pans, Rocker Panels, Adjusted Doors and Door Frames, Straightened and Rechromed Bumpers, Driver Mirror was Moved to the Door and the Passenger Mirror was Added, and a Full Repaint was Completed
• 1491cc 4-Cylinder Engine
• 3-Speed Manual Drivetrain
• Stored in a HVAC-Controlled Garage
• A Framed Photograph of Jimmy Buffett in the Nash is Included in the Sale
• Copy of the Title in Jimmy Buffett’s Name is Included

Nearly three years after Jimmy Buffett’s death, his legacy endures — and continues to expand. His Coral Reefer Band continues to help Parrotheads waste away in Margaritaville (and across the country) to the old hits, and there’s more music on the way.

Buffett chief lieutenants Mac McAnally and Michael Utley — who co-produced Buffett’s final album, Equal Strain on All Parts, released just two months after his passing in 2023 – have put the finishing touches on a posthumous album that McAnally tells Billboard “is, for the most part, things that have never been out.” Or if they were released, they were “cut for a one-off purpose, a TV episode or a movie. The oldest of these tracks is, like, 2003, and the newest is maybe four years ago or so. None of those things have ever been on a Jimmy Buffett album. We’re pretty excited.”

The album has no title or release date yet, but McAnally says, “we’re done with the music, and it’s really good. It’s a good hodgepodge. When you hear Jimmy sing you can tell that he’s smiling; you can hear that smile, and I’ve been listening to that smile for three months finishing this record, so I’m almost sore from smiling — but I ain’t gonna quit.”

Additional good news for Buffett fans was a recent decision in Key West to permit Buffett’s Shrimp Boat Sound Studio in the Historic Seaport to operate as a tourist destination as well as a commercial recording studio. “It’s a little concrete block building where shrimp boats used to dump shrimp, that for some reason or another good things happen in,” says McAnally, who was in Key West on his birthday last week to help push the measure through.

“It’s our mission to remind people of how much joy he put into his music, and how much joy he put into coming to see them every summer. That’s what we’re doing. He never wanted to have anything to do with anybody being sad; that’s why when he was going through cancer he didn’t let anybody know, because he just wanted to continue to make people happy as long as he was walking the earth, which is what he did.”

Acknowledging that “it’s an emotional thing to be up there without him,” McAnally says, “We leave his microphone empty at the middle of the stage, and I’ve got his guitar sitting there in case he wants to show up – ’cause it wouldn’t surprise me. [Laughs] Nothing about him has surprised me in the last 25 years, so we’re ready for him if he comes. But beyond that, I feel his spirit every night, and the crowd does, too.”

During this new episode of Songlines & Stories on SiriusXM’s RadioMargaritaville, McAnally reminisces with Zac Brown about how fond Buffett was of FaceTime.

He begins, “For the last three years, he was calling me. He liked to FaceTime. You know this about Jimmy. He was into the FaceTime thing. He would call me at 5:30 in the morning…I’m awake, but I don’t really want to FaceTime anybody at 5:30 in the morning, and they don’t really want to FaceTime me – except for Jimmy Buffett”.

McAnally goes on, “But every time he called, he was just roaring laughing. When I answered the phone, he was just laughing his ass off every time he called, and I couldn’t figure it out. And the last summer that I spent with him, I would go up to Sag Harbor and we would just play music in the summer of ‘23 He would just call like we were in elementary school and say, ‘Can you come to my house and play?’ And we would play guitars and sing, and that’s what we did for the summer of ‘23”.

Then, McAnally reveals the moment he finally learned the hilarious reason why Buffett would always be laughing at the start of their calls, “He used Siri to call people, and he had put a space in my name when he typed it into his phone, and he would say, ‘Siri, call Mac’…I heard him do this on his phone. This is why I knew why he’d been laughing for three years. He would say, ‘Siri, call Mac’, and Siri would say, ‘Calling Mac Anally’”.

As Brown attempts to stifle a chuckle himself – and eventually cannot help it – McAnally goes on, “Look, that is funny, but I never knew why he was laughing. You know, for three years he was laughing every time I answered the phone. Now I know!”

Zac Brown Band will take the stage at the Nassau Cruise Port Amphitheatre for an exclusive live concert, included only for Margaritaville at Sea guests.

Reserve your spot today: https://www.margaritavilleatsea.com/experiences/zac-brown-nassau