An ex-mistress of Ray Charles agreed on Tuesday to be grilled by lawyers over her sexual history in a bid to establish whether her 17-year-old son is really the late soul legend’s child.
But unemployed Mary Anne den Bok told a court on Tuesday that she regretted asking for a 20-fold increase in child support payments from Charles’s estate to at least $60 000 a month from $3 000 previously.
The questioning under oath comes after Mary Anne den Bok sued Charles’sestate in August in a bid to boost child support payments for her son Corey by 20-fold to keep him in the style to which he was accustomed.
She had claimed that the $3 000 monthly stipend that the executor of Charles’s estate, Joe Adams, began paying when the singer’s died was ”vastly inadequate and insufficient” to pay Corey’s expenses.
Den Bok agreed in the Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday to answer intimate questions on January 4 at the offices of lawyers for Charles’s estate, which had asked Judge Thomas Stoever to compel her to testify.
The estate’s executor is questioning whether Charles actually fathered Corey, even though the boy is listed as his son in his will as a son. The ”Genius of Soul”, Charles died of liver disease on June 10 at the age of 73.
Den Bok told the court she felt ”humiliated” by previous questioning on the subject of her sex life and said she had had second thoughts about making a request for a twentyfold increase in child support.
”I sincerely regret, in my initial petition, that I made the exorbitant request [for raising child support] that I did,” she said.”My sexual history, for the past 21 years, has been that I had no sexual relations with anyone other than [Charles],” she added.
In her August petition, Den Bok asked for a minimum of $60 000 a month to support her son and return to him ”the lifestyle he enjoyed” before Charles’s final illness.
According to Den Bok, Charles’s estate is worth about $100-million and is expected to have a net annual income from royalties and publishing rights of about $25-million this year and again in 2005.
Den Bok alleged that the boy was entitled to ”a lifestyle commensurate with [Charles’s] tremendous wealth, continuing enormous income and privileged station in life”.
In her petition, Den Bok also alleges that an attorney for Adams, who was Charles’s longtime manager, ”falsely and wrongfully claim[ed] that an issue exists in this litigation concerning … paternity”.
A further court hearing in the case has been set for January 10.
Since his death, Charles has enjoyed renewed popularity with his final album of duets, Genius Loves Company, going platinum and picking up a total of 10 Grammy nominations earlier this month.
His life has been immortalised in Taylor Hackford’s film Ray, for which actor Jamie Foxx is strongly tipped to win a best-actor Oscar nomination when they are announced next month. ‒ Sapa-AFP