No good deed goes unpunished. Plant a story on the inter-web and watch it grow! By Sunday night, the world probably thought the Farrah Fawcett Foundation, started by the late star and run by her best friend, was in hot water with the California State Attorney General. But it’s not true. The Farrah Fawcett Foundation received a typical letter from the California AG office for an audit. They complied. The beginning of the letter is attached to this story, obtained exclusively here.
Alana Stewart, Fawcett’s best friend and co-producer of the hit documentary that aired on NBC before she died, takes umbrage. She tells me the churning of the waters has to do with a couple of disgruntled exes–an employee and a past boyfriend of Farrah’s–and of a former business partner who didn’t get his way. Indeed, I’ve checked the three published Form 990s for the Farrah Fawcett Foundation, and they are fine. There is no malfeasance.
For the next filing, Stewart says we’ll see a couple of changes. She is now taking the meager sum of $60,000 a year as a salary. Plus, the foundation finally moved into regular offices, so a rent increase is shown. Saya Alana: “In 2009, we had no offices. They took two old office rooms in the building and made them into a great office, construction, decorating etc. was an expense, but a reasonable one. Is that what you mean? They started construction the latter part of 2009, I believe.”
Otherwise, the FF Foundation — spurred by Fawcett’s bequest of over $3 million in 2009– is on its way.
Indeed, the FF Foundation has already given away $85,000 in 2009, and closer to $250,000 in 2010. Their recipients include a research doctor in whom Fawcett placed her trust; The Angeles Clinic in Los Angeles; and Texas’s MD Anderson Center. Says Alana, who became a grandmother five weeks ago: “Everything we’ve done has been done to the letter of the law and overseen by the foundation attorney who Farrah originally formed the foundation with (in 2006, 2 mos. after she was diagnosed with cancer). We have all backup for everything. The foundation doesn’t do any of the book keeping or check writing. It’s all done by the treasurer, one of her business managers.”
Ironically, Alana did not receive any money from Farrah in the “Charlie’s Angels” star’s will. Bequests were made to the foundation, to Fawcett’s son and nephew, and to one other person– Greg Lott, a long ago boyfriend, for $100,000. It’s Lott who insisted in wire reports that the Foundation was being investigated. Lott and few others, Stewart says, have banded together on Facebook to try and malign her and the work the Foundation is doing. Stewart says she’s contacted powerhouse attorneys Howard Weitzman and Marty Singer, particularly about a nasty Facebook posting which smears her own biography.
