Muhammad Ali’s son claims he is on the ropes and facing homelessness a year after his father’s death.
And today he accuses other family members of stopping him getting an equal share of the boxing legend’s £62million fortune.
Muhammad Ali Junior, 45 – the fighter’s only natural son – says he has only received three “measly payments” of £2,000 in the last two months and is sleeping on a friend’s floor in Florida, just days away from living on the streets because he can’t afford to pay any rent.
Ali Jnr said an equal slice of the inheritance had been agreed at a meeting in California with his seven sisters, adopted brother Asaad, and the will executor – Ali’s fourth wife of 30 years, Lonnie, 59.
Before his death from septic shock at 74 on June 3 last year, Parkinson’s disease sufferer Ali, who styled himself as The Greatest, is believed to have told friends he wanted all of his children to have no money worries.
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But his son told us: “It looks like I’ve just been cut off completely. I don’t have a bank account, so they’ve had to wire money to me.
“It’s been a rough year. This isn’t what my dad would have wanted. He would have wanted me to be OK, have a place to stay, have my money.
“I’m going to live off water now, as that’s all I can afford. Getting food is hard, as I don’t have a cent to my name.
“I just find a way somehow to get food each day. I’ve got nowhere I call home any more.”
Asked if he was scared of facing life on the streets, he said: “I don’t care where I sleep at, as long as I sleep.”
He said he has begged other family members for help.
For the last 20 years, Ali Jnr says he has been ostracised by the family, having little contact with his famous father.
He lived on Chicago’s notorious gangland south side with his wife Shaakira and daughters Ameera and Shakera, struggling to make ends meet cleaning people’s yards and doing odd jobs.
But his marriage fell apart just a month after his famous father died, amid accusations that he ran out on his wife.
He insists she dumped him and forced him out of their marital home.
After attending a family meeting over the will last July, Ali Jnr says he got a phone call from Shaakira saying she had moved in with her parents because the water and electricity had been cut off.
He says he then made his way to Miami and stayed with his mother, Ali’s first wife, Khalilah, 66.
But for now he is sleeping on a friend’s floor in Fort Lauderdale.
Ali Jnr told us: “I stayed with the marriage to see if things can work out, but I had 11 years of complete unhappiness.
“I love my daughters and I would do anything in the world to be with them. You can ask anybody that know me and
they would tell you Muhammad is the kindest, sweetest man they have ever known.”
Desperate for cash, he has been asking friends to sponsor a recipe book he’s hoping to get published entitled Knock Out Cookbook.
Ali Jnr isn’t the only one of the fighter’s clan to claim that he’s been cut out of the will – the boxer’s younger brother Rahman, 73, says he hasn’t received a cent from the family.
Rahman was also a professional boxer and is now also suffering from Parkinson’s, but can’t rely on his brother’s fortune to pay his huge medical bills in the US. Ali Jnr adds: “Rahman didn’t get anything, not a thing. He’s not OK money wise.”
In March, Ali Jnr hit the headlines after twice being detained and questioned for hours about his Muslim faith by border security in the space of just over a month under Donald Trump’s controversial immigration policy.
Ironically, he was stopped the second time on his way back from Washington after meeting Congress about his first detention.
Jeffrey K Eisen, an attorney for the Muhammad Ali Trust which governs the distribution of the boxer’s estate, told us: “Muhammad Ali’s trust and all of its details were approved by him and reflect his wishes to ensure that his legacy would be honoured exactly as prescribed.
“Now a year after his death, the trust, including Muhammad Ali Jr’s interest, has been and will continue to be administered as it was written and in accordance with applicable law. As always, the specific terms of the trust are a private matter.”
