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| John Allen Amos Jr. (December 27, 1939-August 21, 2024 |
MEMPHIS, TN – The last days of John Amos’s life were fraught with discord and conflict, a far cry from his early days on the set of “Good Times” portraying James Evans Sr., who struggled to helm a poor Black family living on the fringes in a Chicago housing project.
While Amos’s portrayal of a hardworking patriarch was admirable, his children, on the other hand, have embroiled themselves in legal wrangling before and after the death of their father on Aug. 21, 2024. The ongoing flap between Shannon Amos and Kelly Christopher “KC” Amos has been played out in some media reports as a rivalry between siblings. But they refuse to accept such a narrative. John Allen Amos Jr. died of congestive heart failure at a hospital in Inglewood, Calif., at the age of 84. But his death wasn’t announced until Oct. 1 by KC, who said he was only honoring his father’s request. “He told me not to call anybody. It was a difficult request, but it was his decision,” KC said. “He knew she (Shannon) was going to create a very destructive media circus. He didn’t want her to know,” said Belinda Foster, Amos’s longtime assistant and publicist. After discovering that her father had died 45 days before his death was announced, Shannon demanded answers. She wanted to know the cause of death and hired an attorney. “There are many questions that emerged about the nature of the care that was provided to my father in his final moments,” said Shannon, who identified Foster as a person of interest. She also mentioned Eugene Brummett, KC’s friend and college roommate. Shannon launched an investigation alleging that decisions were made by outside doctors, “who did not appear to have professional healthcare credentials or caregiver training.” She pegged Foster and Brummett as “grifters” and “super fans” who took advantage of her father, including her brother, whom she accused of elder abuse and suffering from a bipolar disorder. KC said elder abuse was unproven after an independent investigation was launched by Homeland Security Services, Inc., Adult Protective Services, and law enforcement agencies, and that he’s never been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder. The hullabaloo began after KC and his father arrived in Memphis on May 10, 2023, for a luncheon on May 11 at the Memphis Health Center. The schedule included a gala at a venue, featuring Amos as the keynote speaker. The next day, KC accompanied his father to a press conference at The Peabody hotel to announce the actor’s role in “Hillbilly Bible,” a faith-based film produced by Memphian Marie Pizano, founder/president of MVP3 Foundation. KC was signed to direct the film in Memphis. At the historic hotel, both father and son were tapped as honorary duck masters. They were scheduled to leave Memphis on May 14 — Mother’s Day — but Amos complained of swollen feet. “When they took a closer look, immediately they decided that he needed to see a doctor…that he needed to be hospitalized,” KC said. “They transferred him directly the next day to get tested.” Amos was admitted to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis on May 15 and was placed in ICU — not because he was gravely ill, his son said, but because bed space was temporarily unavailable. “He wanted to avoid the fans. He wanted his privacy,” said KC, and added that his father was eventually moved to a room. Shannon called for her father. Before answering the phone, Amos said to KC, who was filming the actor for a future documentary about his life, “Let’s get this over with. What is my response to this?” “That’s your daughter. I don’t know,” KC responded, and walked out the room. Amos went on to explain to Shannon that he was at Baptist Hospital dealing with a couple of health issues — swollen feet and shortness of breath. “But I’m coming around,” he assured her. Shannon asked her father if she could speak to a nurse practitioner. He asked why. She wanted to give the hospital her contact information and told her father that she was concerned about his wellbeing. The drama continued. On May 17, KC said he was threatened by his sister, who called the Memphis Police Department to The Peabody on allegations of elder abuse. Squad cars pulled up, he said, but the officers were friendly. “She has called the police on me 26 times over the years making false claims and defaming my character,” he said. “She promised that she will have me buried under the jail one day.” KC filed a report himself with the MPD, the District Attorney of Shelby County, and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. He described a contentious relationship with his sister and believed she posed a threat to him and their father. “I have text messages to prove it,” he said. “And for my own safety, I kept the camera rolling. I filmed everything.” Before the end of day on May 17, KC said Shannon sent a man from Atlanta to the hospital named Charles West, who claimed to be his father’s business manager. To avoid conflict, KC left the hospital. The next day, he said someone from the hospital notified him of West’s return and his attempt to coerce hospital officials into allowing him to take power of attorney over his father. KC was suspicious of West and believed he, too, was a threat to his father and him. His suspicions were also aroused when he learned that a woman from New Jersey named Johanna Wright had finagled the POA. On June 18, Father’s Day, he accused Wright of barring him, Foster, Brummett and Pizano from visiting his father. The next day, he said his father asked him to go to Westcliffe, Colo. — where both father and son were living — to retrieve his checks after closing his bank account. Since KC was in Westcliffe, he swung by the house and noticed something was amiss. “I saw boxes,” he said. “It was like a moving operation that just started the process.” He said one of the movers offered this explanation: “We’ve been hired to clean out the house.” Moreover, to Amos’s chagrin, he learned that Shannon had set up a GoFundMe account asking the public to donate $500,000 for her father’s “medical care, legal expenses, and housing.” “He was angry and demanded that she take down the page,” KC said. “He said he didn’t need the public’s help.” After the positive rollout of “Hillbilly Bible,” Foster said, “She destroyed the great story about John Amos coming to Memphis. It was embarrassing, outrageous.” Social media was buzzing with Shannon’s allegation of elder abuse and financial exploitation. But then a video of the veteran actor surfaced with him admitting that his daughter was the abuser. While speaking to someone by phone, purportedly to Memphis attorney Larry Parish, Amos said: “I have some ongoing issues with my daughter. She is the one that I would attribute my elderly abuse to.” Shannon said her father had several strokes over the years and was diagnosed with dementia and global amnesia. She believed he was vulnerable to KC, whom she described as smart and manipulative. Both Foster and KC said Amos was thoroughly tested by a noted psychiatrist in Los Angeles, Calif., and that he was not diagnosed with dementia. “This was something John wanted as a backup,” she said. The ongoing flap between KC and Shannon continues to reverberate across social media platforms. One commenter on Instagram posted: “In times like this, families get together. It is a shame because Mr. Amos didn’t get the respect he deserves.” “Before my father passed, we had a beautiful relationship,” Shannon said, and pointed to an online video of them in 2022 dancing happily to Luther Vandross’s signature song “Dance With My Father.” “I think that you can see the love in that video,” Shannon said. According to Foster, “She hadn’t seen John in over a year.” “She was in Mexico,” KC said, “faking like she had cancer and submitted an invoice to my father for $9,000 a month for treatment. I said: ‘Man, you can’t go down that road. You’re going to end up in the poor house.’” KC maintained that his sister had often asked their father for money, including the $1,000 he said Amos had given her on his first day in Memphis. “My father was there for both of us financially, many times,” she conceded. “But there's a big difference between asking him and stealing it.” According to KC, it was his father’s caregiver in Westcliffe who stole his money. “They stole $670 five times every 10 minutes weekly,” he said, and contacted the sheriff to investigate. Another time in Westcliffe, KC said he witnessed a spat between Shannon and their father. “She opened his box where he kept his meds [reefer]. She said, ‘This is what’s wrong with you.’ He asked her to leave and filed a restraining order.” Shannon admitted having a “complexed and layered” relationship with her father and attributed it to generational traumas. “And so, my dad and I had done a lot of healing,” she said. “His last words to me were that he loved me.” Still aggrieved at not having a closer relationship with her father before his death, Shannon said, “He was cut off from me and the entire family, and from everyone who was a part of his daily life and everyone who loved him.” TMZ (“Thirty Mile Zone”) and Extra TV, both celebrity entertainment news sources, and others, weighed in on the flap, including Shannon’s allegations that KC is bipolar and grappling with a drug problem. “It appeared to me that my brother has struggled with mental health and drug addiction issues for many years,” she said. “At one point, after my mother passed in 2016, I stepped in to help my brother.” The siblings were roommates once. After a year together, “I started to see signs. It appeared that he could be using again. I made the choice to move to Mexico and he made the choice to move out.” Before the two parted ways in 2020, Shannon said she found what appeared to be a white powdery substance in KC’s car. But she did not say if she was able to confirm her suspicion. “But one of the things he didn't honor was an agreement that he had that if we were going to live together that he would go to rehab. He never went to rehab,” she said. “I’ve never had a drug problem,” KC countered. “I’ve never been to rehab or any of that stuff.” He has admitted to smoking reefer with his father, who struggled with “old football injuries,” he said. KC also accused Shannon of using drugs. A Wellness Travel Expert and Plant Medicine Ceremonialist, he said, “She was using extremely powerful psychedelic drugs” when she was in Mexico on a healing and cleansing retreat with Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drug. “She told me about her first hit and that she spent three to four hours purging herself,” he said. “It's ironic that somebody who is actually doing hardcore psychedelics is making these drug accusations about me.” KC said he and Shannon never really had a true brother and sister relationship. “She’s always been vindictive,” he said, and cited an incident in New Jersey when she called the police on him. The incident involved their mother, Noel J. Mickelson, Amos’s first wife. A quadriplegic, KC said he built a guest house onto his home and hired a licensed caregiver named Maria Avila to tend to her daily needs. “I tried to keep working while I was doing all this, as every man needs to work,” said KC, a filmmaker and video editor. “So, a job came up and I went to Nassau, Bahamas, to shoot a music video.” After landing in Nassau, KC said the caregiver called to inform him that Shannon had sent her home, called the police, and reported their mother was being abused. He flew home right away to find a note in the door from the police. “My sister was parked around the corner,” KC surmised, “and was hoping and praying that they would come in there and that I would be in trouble for leaving.” On June 19, Amos was discharged from Baptist Hospital and was admitted to the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey. Foster believed the move was made to separate Amos from his son. It was apparent that Amos didn’t want to remain at Kessler and made his point clear in a video of him and KC in a vehicle literally begging a woman he called “Jo” to release him from the institute. Was “Jo” short for Johanna Wright? “Jo,” however, was determined to keep Amos at Kessler, even after he asked her to revoke the power of attorney. “I can’t do that,” she said. “That wouldn’t be responsible of me.” “I’m not going back into the hospital,” Amos said to “Jo.” “If you do so, it will be against my will.” Amos left Kessler on July 2. Thirteen days later, KC was arrested in the presence of his father. He spent a couple of days in New Jersey’s Essex County Jail for allegedly threatening his sister with a gun. “Once the prosecutors studied everything and realized there was no evidence, they threw the case out,” KC said. The saga continues. And the ongoing flap between John Amos’s children leaves fans wondering if their fractured relationship will ever be mended. 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