Jett Williams was born as Antha Belle Jett on 6 January 1953, in Montgomery, Alabama USA, and is a singer and songwriter, but possibly best known as the daughter of the legendary country music singer Hank Williams, who fought a long legal battle to prove her connection to him.
So just how rich is Jett Williams? Sources state that Williams has accumulated a wealth of over $10 million, as of early 2017, her net worth mostly coming from the inheritance from her father, but also through her own singing career.
Jett Williams Net Worth $10 million
Williams was born just a few days before her father’s sudden death of a heart attack at the age of 29. The country singer, who became a star famous for his hits such as “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “Hey, Good Lookin'” and “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive”, met her mother, Francis ‘Bobbie’ Jett, in between the end of his first marriage and the beginning of his second, and had an affair with the woman, which resulted in her becoming pregnant. Prior to Williams’ birth, her parents reached a legal agreement that her father and his mother, Lillian Stone, would raise her. Therefore, following her father’s death, Williams was initially raised by Stone, who renamed her Catherine Yvonne Stone. However, after Stone died, the girl was put up for adoption at the age of three, and her new parents renamed her Cathy Louise Deupree. Williams knew that she was adopted, but it took her many years to learn about her past and to find out the identity of her biological parents. However, she still had to fight a long battle to be recognized as his daughter and an heir of his estate, along with her half-brother, country singer Hank Williams Jr., who refused to acknowledge her as his sister for a long time.
In the mid-’80s, she hired investigative attorney Keith Adkinson, who would later become her husband, to help her in her quest. He eventually proved Williams’ connection to Hank Williams by revealing a custody agreement her father had made before she was born, also proving that she was defrauded from financial gain by other members of the Williams family. Finally, in 1985, when she was 21, the Alabama State Court officially declared her as the daughter of Jett and Williams. A couple of years later, the court ruled in her favor and entitled her as an equal heir of Williams’ estate, a half-share of his multimillion-dollar estate. Her net worth boosted. By the end of the ’90s, she and her half-brother finally reconciled, and as a result of the Williams’ case, several laws governing the inheritance rights of adopted children have been changed.
In 1990 Williams published her autobiography called “Ain’t Nothin’ as Sweet as My Baby”, further increasing her popularity and her wealth as well.
During the time she was on a quest to find out who she was and then fighting for her inheritance rights, Williams pursued a singing career, taking the name Jett Williams as her stage name. She made her professional debut in 1989, mixing her father’s hits – such as “Your Cheatin’ Heart” – with her own songs. She appeared at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, and went on to revive her father’s legacy for a new generation of fans. She has held an annual festival called Jett Williams Country Music Festival in Lafayette, Tennessee since 1998, and has released two compact discs, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and “That Reminds Me of Hank”. Williams’ singing career has been a major source of her net worth.
In her personal life, Williams married Keith Adkinson in 1986, and they remained together until his death in 2013. She has been involved in charities, which was acknowledged in 2000 when the Tennessee House of Representatives passed a resolution designating 18 May 2000 as ‘Jett Williams Appreciation Day’ in Macon County, where she resides.
