The sons of TV actor Lynda Bellingham have said she was heavily medicated when she signed the will.
Michael and Robbie Peluso had previously claimed they received just £750 each from their mother’s estate even though they believed it was her wish that they be looked after financially.
The pair told This Morning they accepted the will stated everything be left to their stepfather, they also say the new will that cut them out was signed just two weeks after their mother was rushed into hospital for emergency surgery.
They explained during an interview on ITV’s This Morning: “I think she was a very trusting woman. She always saw the best in everyone. The advice she was given whatever that may have been, inheritance tax and things like that, she felt that what she was doing was the best by us.
“We have a very close unit around us of friends and family to look after us who have been there for us and we just wish there was a bit more faith put into them. I just wish that the decision, that we had our own choices to make…
“At the moment it’s difficult to say because we are not challenging the validity of the will.”
Lynda Bellingham, star of All Creatures Great and Small, the Oxo Family adverts as well as presenting on ITV’s Loose Women died on 19th October 2014 after a public battle with bowel cancer.
Her sons continued: “She’s signed that will regardless of whether the fact she may have been under a lot of medication. She was rushed into the hospital on the 14 of December [corrected to the 13th] as her colon burst. And she was given a 50/50 chance of coming out of that surgery.
“On the 30th December the will is dated, so within less than two weeks she was signing a new will when you have just been told that you have a 50/50 chance of dying.
“She went on to live until October [2014] and we don’t feel it was necessary to rush that, we also wanted to be included in the decisions being made and we weren’t.
“What I want people watching at home to know is, it is about the money. Of course it is. It’s about us having the security that our mum wanted us to have.”
A statement her third husband Michael Pattemore gave to the programme said: “The only comment I will make is, we don’t have probate yet and when it’s released that is when I will make my comment.”
The late Lynda Bellingham’s sons speak exclusively to @itvthismorning: https://t.co/JQHBUin9Dl pic.twitter.com/BCKY62miKu
— This Morning (@itvthismorning) May 3, 2016
