Johnny Hallyday’s Domicile? See Instagram!

Hallyday in 1965
photo©ErlingMandelmann.ch

Johnny Hallyday, France's answer to Elvis, was little appreciated by U.S. audiences. In France he was a
national icon, right up there with Edith Piaf.

Hallyday died in 2017, leaving two wills, one of which was probated in Los Angeles, where he and his fourth wife had taken up residence in 2007. The will leaves everything to his widow, who has their two adopted children in her care. The will leaves nothing to Hallyday's two older children from previous marriages.

In France, where a form of forced heirship still rules, the older children would not be disinherited. So they went to court in France, seeking to show that Hallyday had still been domiciled in France, not LA.

The French court has now agreed to take up the case, convinced in part by photos Hallyday had posted on his Instagram account from 2012 to 2017.  They indicate that he spent more than 150 days in France during both 2015 and 2016. In 2017 he was in France for eight months before his death.

In the age of not only Photoshop but AI, the use of digital photographs as evidence seems destined to become increasingly iffy. No other type of fake news is easier to create.