Katy Perry is facing a heated court battle with the family of the dying veteran who was forced to give up his Montecito mansion to her after a years-long dispute over his properties, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Ailing Carl Westcott, 84, agreed to sell his eight-bedroom home to Perry for $15 million in 2020, but days later he wanted to back out of the deal after signing it while under the influence of painkillers.
A court ruled that the contract was valid and late last year Perry was declared the legal owner of the gated 1930s estate, which features a tennis court, two guest houses and a swimming pool.
However, the Firework singer still wants to shave about $6 million off the prize, claiming the bedridden octogenarian, who is currently receiving hospice care for Huntington’s disease, owes her vast sums for repairs and lost rental income.
She will have to plead her case in person, however, after a California judge ordered Perry to testify at an upcoming damages trial, where she will face Westcott’s furious family members, who claim the “exhausting” battle ruined their beloved patriarch’s final days.
DailyMail.com has learned that Westcott’s entire immediate family, including his sons Chart and Court Westcott – who is married to Real Housewives of Dallas alumnus Kameron Westcott – are all planning to attend the LA Superior Court.
“It’s clear that she’s trying to squeeze every last bit of money out of Carl’s family without any empathy, at the expense of an older man’s inheritance,” a family friend told us.
“The fact is, the Westcott family wants her to face them because they feel like they deserve it. She took their father’s house and now she wants to take his shirt off.
“The least she can do is look them all in the eye while she does that.”
The sprawling, 9,000-square-foot compound in the Santa Ynez Hills has been registered since May to owner DDoveB, a reference to Perry’s 3-year-old daughter, Daisy Dove Bloom.
Perry has posted $9 million in bond to pay Westcott, a celebrated veteran of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne who was born into a “poor” family in Mississippi.
He grew up in a shotgun house with no plumbing, but moved to LA where he founded several successful businesses, including 1-800-Flowers.
His father had only an elementary education and could neither read nor write. Westcott was sent to a home for juvenile delinquents for selling school lunch vouchers.
But he got his life back on track when he moved to LA as a teenager and started selling cars, eventually opening his own dealership.
“If you’re poor in Mississippi, you’re the poorest of the poor,” Westcott once said.
“We didn’t have a car, and I always thought people with cars were rich. In fact, I thought people with lawns were pretty remarkable.”
How much of the remaining $6 million balance Perry owes him will be determined in the second phase of their lengthy, four-year lawsuit.
The damages trial was originally scheduled to take place this month and last several days. But Westcott’s lawyers argued for more time after Perry — worth an estimated $350 million — hired 25 experts to comb the house for defects.
They will argue that the five-acre plot of land is in need of repairs due to water damage, an oak tree that fell on a building and several other maintenance issues that arose while they waited years to move in.
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She also wants to recoup about $3.5 million in lost rent she allegedly could have earned from the posh retreat, despite saying when she sold it that she planned to raise her daughter there.
Perry’s attorneys argued at a June 20 hearing that she and Bloom — who will also likely be subpoenaed and asked to testify — were essentially “laymen” and would instead rely on testimony from professional construction experts.
But Judge Joseph Lipner insisted: “As I sit here now, I fully expect Ms. Perry to be present as a witness.”
DailyMail.com previously revealed how Perry became embroiled in the extraordinary dispute with Westcott after claiming his judgment was clouded by powerful medications and ill health when he signed the deal on July 15, 2020.
He had only purchased the house in May of that year and had moved in two months earlier. When he got in touch with Perry’s agent, Bernie Gudvi, he agreed to pay him $3,750,000 more than he had just bought it for.
The then 80-year-old had been discharged from hospital just four days before his signing after undergoing a six-hour back operation.
According to his lawyers, he used a strong cocktail of opiates to numb the pain.
When the medication wore off, Westcott realized he had made a mistake. On July 22, he emailed Berkshire Hathaway that he no longer intended to sell.
“The combination of his age, the weakness of his back problems and his recent surgery, and the opiates he was taking multiple times a day, left Mr. Westcott mentally unwell,” his complaint read.
Perry and Bloom’s agents ignored Westcott’s request and wrote him a letter a few days later warning that they would sue him if he did not surrender the property.
Westcott’s family took up the fight for him after he became bedridden and mentally disabled as a result of Huntington’s disease, a disease that attacks the brain and can cause progressive dementia.
Last year, she emerged victorious in the first phase of their trial after Judge Lipner ruled there was “no compelling evidence” that Westcott was unable to sign the contract.
“There are no grounds for termination. The contract must be honored,” he concluded, leaving only the question of damages — essentially, how big a cut Perry, who did not testify in person, should get — to be determined.
It wasn’t the first time Perry had legal problems purchasing a home.
In 2015, she became embroiled in a dispute with older Roman Catholic nuns over the sale of a convent she had purchased in 2015, paying $14.5 million in cash to Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles.
Sister Rita Callanan and Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, who have lived at the convent since the 1970s, claimed Gomez had no right to sell the property, saying they had sold it weeks earlier for $15.5 million.
But the archdiocese filed a lawsuit to block the agreement, arguing that the nuns had overstepped their authority.
In 2016, a judge ruled against the nuns and awarded Perry and the archdiocese damages totaling more than $15 million.
During the legal battle in 2018, 89-year-old Sister Holzman collapsed and died during a court hearing.
This prompted Sister Callanan, the only surviving nun of the Order of the Most Sacred and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to declare that Perry had “blood on her hands.”