GEORGE HARRISON left a staggering fortune of more than $300 million, but the Beatles legend’s older sister is broke and living in a mobile home in a rundown, crime-infested section of Branson, Mo.
Still, the plucky senior says she gets by with a little help from her friends.
“I don’t have any money, but I’ve got loads and loads of good friends, and that’s more valuable than all the money in the world,” Louise, 82, told The ENQUIRER in an exclusive interview.
Her world-famous brother – who lived in a 120-room Victorian mansion in England – died on Nov. 29, 2001, leaving his vast wealth to his wife Olivia and son Dhani, now 35 and fronting an alternative rock group called thenewno2. But Louise said she didn’t get a cent and had to sell her house just to survive. These days, Louise lives in a trailer. She manages a Beatles tribute band called the Liverpool Legends and scrapes by on a meager cut of their earnings. Although she doesn’t travel with them regularly, she does appear with the look-alike group on occasion, telling stories about her famous brother.
But lately, times have been especially hard for Louise and the band, which is currently at the tail end of a road tour.
“We’ve been struggling for the last two years or so,” she told The ENQUIRER.
Meanwhile, Louise dreams of being able to leave her Merriam Woods neighborhood, called by residents “the worst suburb of Branson.”
The seedy area is a magnet for drug addicts, meth labs and sex offenders. A shocking 20 percent of its residents live below the poverty line and have an average annual income of only $17,796.
“I would like to be able to afford to move somewhere better,” Louise admitted. “But when you don’t have much money, there’s not much you can do. I’m pretty broke.
“A mobile home – that’s where I live. That’s all I can afford.”
Times were always so hard for Louise. The year before the Beatles exploded with their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964, George visited Louise for a couple of weeks at her house in Benton, Ill. She later sold the home, and it was turned into a bed and breakfast that she helped promote by using George’s name.
Unfortunately, that put her at odds with George and they didn’t speak for six years. But weeks before he died of cancer, George relented and they healed the rift as he lay in a New York hospital bed.
Louise says she also endured two bad marriages but was helped out by George in 1980 when he gave her a $2,000-a-month pension to help her make ends meet. After his death, she adds, she was cut off completely.
“When he died, the Harrison Family Trust didn’t want to give that (pension) to me anymore, and I wasn’t in any position to argue,” said Louise.
“I guess I got screwed.
“I’m 82 and still working. Whoever decided I was not deserving of $2,000 a month anymore, that person obviously does not have much of a soul or a heart or anything else.
“I’d rather be myself and be kind and compassionate and friendly with all the people around me and be broke, than be very rich and be absolutely heartless and cruel.
“But I don’t blame anybody and I’m not unhappy. I’m a Harrison. The way our parents brought us up is not to be dependent on anybody else.”
Added a former neighbor of Louise’s: “It’s awful that she’s forced to live in such a terrible environment at her age.”