Vicky Cornell, the widow of the late Chris Cornell, is reportedly suing Soundgarden over a buyout offer from the band.
According to TMZ, the surviving members of the “Black Hole Sun” rockers offered Vicky $300,000 for Chris’ share in the band. In her suit, Vicky reportedly claims that the offer is way too low — she points to a previous $16 million offer for Soundgarden’s masters, and that her stake, along with that of each of the three band members, should be worth $4 million.
Vicky is reportedly asking for a judge to conduct a valuation on Soundgarden’s assets.
In statement to TMZ, a rep for Soundgarden says, “As requested by the Estate of Chris Cornell and as required by the laws of the State of Washington, the surviving members of Soundgarden submitted to the Cornell Estate four months ago a buy-out offer of the Estate’s interests in Soundgarden calculated by respected music industry valuation expert Gary Cohen.”
“Since then, the band members have continued to try to settle all disputes with the Cornell Estate,” the statement continues. “In their several attempts to settle, the band members have elected to offer multiple times more than the amount calculated by Cohen.”
Vicky first sued Soundgarden in December 2019 over the rights to seven unreleased recordings, which she claims were “solely authored” by Chris. Soundgarden then claimed they had rightful ownership to the recordings, and issued a counter-suit alleging that Vicky had misused charity funds raised from the Chris Cornell memorial show in 2019. That claim was later dropped, though the suit over the recordings still continues.
Last December, the Cornell Estate released a new album called No One Sings Like You Anymore, a collection of covers Chris had recorded in 2016 prior to his 2017 death.
By Josh Johnson
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