Casey Kasem's kids are prepared to fight for their right to see their father. As previously reported, the 81-year-old legendary radio host is currently suffering from advanced Parkinson's disease and has been holed up with second wife Jean at his Holmby Hills, Calif., home, where his children Kerri, Julie, and Mike say they and other family members have been unable to visit. But that's just part of the story — Kerri, 35, spoke with Us Weekly recently to set the record straight about the situation with her dad, her relationship (or lack thereof) with Jean, and what she and her siblings plan to do next.
Following their much-publicized protest outside Kasem's home on Oct. 1, Kerri and her brother and sister (from the deejay's first marriage, to Linda Myers) hired a lawyer to negotiate with Jean, whom Kasem wed more than 30 years ago. "It's been really difficult, but I am hoping she comes out and says, you know, 'I'm sorry. Of course you can see your dad,'" Kerri told Us. "But we've heard nothing from her. Nothing. So our next step is legal action."
Kerri confirmed to Us that she and her siblings want to take Jean to court to ask for a conservatorship if she continues to shut them out of their father's life. "We don't understand. Why would you stop your husband from seeing his children, his brother, his friends and family? Why?" Kerri mused.
"Every single day before my dad got too sick to talk on the phone, I talked to my dad," she added. "He talked to every single one of us once a day — we were that close…So to just rip him from us and say, 'Sorry! He's just going to die with me, and you're not going to know about it, and we're not going to tell you anything, and you're not going to have a number to the house, to his caretakers, to his doctors…' It is beyond me."
Kerri noted, however, that things between Jean and the rest of Kasem's family had always been somewhat icy. "We don't have a relationship with her. I mean, literally, I haven't been to that house in more than a decade," she told Us. "I have seen Jean twice in 15 years…And it's like, nobody's fighting; she just has never wanted a relationship with us."
As kids, Kerri claimed, she and her siblings were blocked from attending some of the biggest events in their dad's life and career. "We weren't allowed at their wedding," she told Us. "We weren't allowed when he got the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, we weren't allowed at his 60th birthday, we weren't allowed at any of the big parties that they threw."
That's in the past, though. Kerri's focus now is on being there for her dad in the present. "We love my father and my father loves us," she told Us. "We don't want his money, we don't want his estate, we don't want anything from her. All we want is to see our dad…We just want to see our dad and to love him and take care of him before he dies."
