A Utah judge has dealt a blow to a bid by Gary Coleman’s ex-wife to gain control of the late child TV star’s estate, according to AP.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports, Judge James Taylor ruled Monday that Coleman and Shannon Price did not have a common-law marriage, despite living together after they divorced.
Coleman died of a brain hemorrhage in 2010. Judge Taylor is deciding whether Shannon Price or Coleman’s ex-girlfriend Anna Gray is entitled to his estate.
The judge says Price moved out of Coleman’s home multiple times after their 2008 divorce and the couple did not give a public impression of marriage.
Price has said she and Coleman “couldn’t be without each other,” even after their divorce. Gray managed Coleman’s affair for years and says Coleman named her a beneficiary and executor of his estate in 2005.
At stake is a house worth more than $300,000, intellectual rights to some of Gary Coleman’s works and the “Diff’rent Strokes” star’s ashes.
