Pop superstar Katy Perry has won $2 million in a protracted property battle by filing a lawsuit against 85-year-old Army veteran Carl Westcott, who is now bedridden with Huntington’s disease and receiving hospice care.
Perry’s legal action, detailed in court filings reviewed by the New York Post, sought more than $8 million in damages from Westcott, including $3.25 million for lost rental income during the litigation, $2.2 million for property renovations and $3 million in attorney fees. The dispute centers on an eight-bedroom estate in the celebrity enclave of Montecito, where Perry and her then-boyfriend, actor Orlando Bloom, acquired the property in July 2020 for $15 million.
Perry and Bloom penned a personal note to Westcott imploring him to accept their bid.
“We’re expecting a baby next month and think this home is the perfect place to welcome her,” the couple wrote, according to court documents. Days after signing, Westcott, then 81 and recovering from back surgery on pain medication, attempted to rescind the deal, claiming diminished mental capacity. Westcott’s condition has deteriorated sharply since, with the neurodegenerative Huntington’s disease eroding his cognitive functions and confining him to bed.
His son, Court Westcott, blamed the stress of the litigation for accelerating his father’s decline, saying the case has “devastated his health and spirit.” However, a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge rejected that argument in 2023, ruling that Westcott failed to substantiate his incapacity.
Perry’s legal team further alleged that Westcott had entertained a competing offer from Maria Shriver, the former wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Ruling in her favor, LA County Superior Court Judge Joseph Lipner awarded Perry $2.8 million for lost rental value and $260,000 for repair of water damage and fallen trees – but deducted $1 million from the total award because he said Perry could have invested her money elsewhere, while Westcott lost interest on the same amount.
“The optics of a millionaire pop star demanding hefty damages from a very ill man are terrible,” PR strategist Abesi Manyando told The Telegraph. “This isn’t just a lawsuit, it’s now a David and Goliath narrative – a global superstar with wealth, legal resources and leverage versus an elderly, declining veteran who already lost his home. And that dynamic carries emotional weight.”
It is not the first time Perry has been embroiled in a high-profile legal fight involving real estate. In 2018, Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, an 89-year-old nun, collapsed and died in a Los Angeles courtroom during a hearing tied to Perry’s attempted purchase of a former convent from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The nuns had opposed the sale to the singer, arguing the property belonged to their order; Holzman’s last public words before her fatal collapse were directed at Perry were, “To Katy Perry, please stop.”
Perry, a prominent Democrat supporter who performed at President Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration and campaigned for Vice President and failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024, has recently been linked romantically to former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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