Smokey Robinson’s half-sister sued the singer today (June 4, 1992), over unpaid royalties for a variety of hit songs she co-wrote with him.
Smokey Robinson’s half-sister Rose Ella Jones filed the lawsuit in Superior Court in Pennsylvania, claiming that Smokey stopped making royalty payments or sending accounting for her royalties, from 1980 to 1988.
According to Jones’ lawyer Neville Johnson, Smokey’s sister never saw royalties for songs she wrote with the singer, from 1976 to 1983.
Rosa Ella Jones wrote songs like “Quiet Storm,” and “Virgin Man” with Smokey Robinson.
The financial feud continued all the way up until April of 2010, when Rose Ella Jones lost her battle with stomach cancer.
By this time, her daughter Stacye Jones was supporting her mother by paying her $1,225 monthly rent.
Finally, the younger Jones was forced to put her mother in a nursing home.
In published reports, Stacye claimed that Smokey refused to pay for the home nursing.
“He told me coldly, ‘your mother never did anything for me. Let the state look after her.’ It broke my heart, but I had to put her into a home,” Stayce Jones said.
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