ODB’s Mother Speaks Out

Four years ago today (12/14) marks one of the most tragic days in my life when I lost my son Rusty whom many of you know as Ol’ Dirty Bastard. For the past four years I have sat back and watched certain individuals try and tarnish my sons beliefs. My son loved every single one of his children and every single one of their mothers and provided for them all the best he could when he was alive. My son was an extremely generous soul. In the past four years, my daughter has portrayed me very poorly in law, Icelene. While I am very upset with my daughter in law’s false remarks towards me, I am more upset by the way the other children Rusty had fathered and cherished are not being taken care of properly. I am also outraged that it appears Icelene has been diverting money away from the other children and taking out personal loans against Rusty’s Estate Assets. She has gone through numerous attorneys and her new attorneys have racked up numerous amounts of legal fees and have accomplished nothing. The fans want my son’s last album, which they are not allowing Koch to drop.

I’m not a lawyer or a judge but the children’s attorney, the Estates lawyer Donald David and Jeremy Shure and the Judge Margarita Lopez Toress seem to have no interest in stopping Icelene from looting the estate. In fact many of the mothers have recently hired their own attorney’s for the children because some of them felt that the attorney that Judge Margarita Lopez Torres appointed for them wasn’t properly representing their children. He hasn’t showed up at depositions, he hasn’t done anything to protect my grandchildren. How can you allow someone who has spent over six figures and taken out personal loans against estate assets to continue? Even the bonding company who bonds the Estate is fighting to get out because of the fraud she has committed on the Estate.

It also troubles me that Ferrar and Strauss, a division of Macmillan, are publishing a book about my son’s life. After my son got out of prison, Dirty’s manager, Jarred Weisfeld, and I received a call that Rolling Stone wanted to do an interview with Dirty. We said ok and allowed the person to interview him. She came back for one more interview, which took place at a concert. The article never appeared in Rolling Stone however it did appear in The Village Voice. After my son passed this author who knew my son for only a few hours decided to write a book and asked Jarred and myself to take part in it. We declined and asked that she not use any part of the interview she conducted with my son, in her book, but she did. I am asking all of Dirty’s fans to boycott this book as none of the proceeds are going to his children and this authors motives and intentions seem to be to disgrace my son’s legacy.

Also, quotes from lawyer, Robert Shapiro, in yesterday’s newspaper, are shameful. The fact that an attorney who represented my son for less than a minute, would comment and speculate on my son’s health to get his name in print is disgraceful. The world knows that Robert Shapiro was not really my son’s attorney and his real attorney was like a second father to him and his name is Peter Frankel, one of the only people who went above and beyond the call of duty for my son and whom I love dearly for that.

I hope next year my son’s final album will be released for the 5th Anniversary of his passing. It pains me to have to write this on the day of his passing but I needed to address this.

I know my son would have been at that rally in Chicago when the first African American President was elected and I’m sure he would have gone up on stage and grabbed the microphone as only he could.

Lastly today is a very sad day not only for me but also for my entire family including Dirty’s father and his siblings and children. I will always love my son Rusty and I will always make sure all of his children are taken care of.

— Cherry Jones