The family of a disabled war veteran that is in a legal battle with Katy Perry has sent a scathing letter to Prince Harry days after the popstar was announced as the headliner for the Invictus Games.
Carl Westcott, the former owner of the singer’s Montecito mansion, has been embroiled in a lawsuit with Perry, 40, for four years, and after the latest development of her countersuing for $6 million in damages, the Westcott family isn’t backing down.
In a letter sent to Prince Harry exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, Carl’s son, Chart Westcott, details his family’s concerns regarding Perry performing at the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025, which is set to kick off on February 8.
Prince Harry, 40, has been dragged into the feud since he is the founder of the Invictus Games, an international multi-sport event for wounded, injured, and sick men and women, both serving and veterans.
He and wife Meghan Markle are also close pals and neighbors with Perry and her fiance Orlando Bloom — who will soon be forced to testify in court over the legal battle with Westcottt — in Montecito, California.
Carl, a veteran of the U.S. Army, has been bedridden for over a year as he continues to battle Huntington’s disease.
His family has been heavily involved with the vet’s legal matters since he has been ‘mentally incapacitated’ since the beginning of the lawsuit.
Chart, 39, writes in the letter to the British royal, ‘Our father, who served honorably in the 101st Air𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧e Division, was one of the soldiers deployed by President Eisenhower to uphold civil rights during the Little Rock Nine crisis.
‘His lifetime of entrepreneurship, for which he was inducted into the Horatio Alger Society for Distinguished Americans, embodies the resilience and values celebrated by the Invictus Games.
‘Tragically, at 85 years old and bedridden with Huntington’s disease, he has been unable to fully defend himself in a protracted legal dispute with Ms. Perry over his Montecito home.’
Mr. Westcott goes on to explain the years-long lawsuit and mentions that the second trial is scheduled for February 25.
‘As our father’s health declines, my brother and I are fighting to preserve his legacy, as a man and as a veteran, yet this legal struggle has become a source of immense pain for our family,’ Chart continues, referring to his brother Court, who is married to The Real Housewives of Dallas alum Kameron Westcott.
‘The choice to feature Ms. Perry at the Invictus Games feels at odds with the event’s mission to honor veterans and their sacrifices.
‘While Ms. Perry’s participation may be seen as a gesture of support for veterans, her relentless pursuit of our father in court tells a different story—one that deeply undermines the values the Games stand for.’
Chart concludes the letter by ‘respectfully’ requesting Prince Harry to ‘reconsider’ the decision to secure the Firework songstress in the Vancouver lineup.
He adds, ‘Our family greatly admires the work of the Invictus Foundation and its commitment to veterans worldwide. We believe that highlighting individuals whose actions align with these values is critical to preserving the integrity of this event.’
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Chart explained more about his family’s motives when it came to their decision to write to Prince Harry.
‘It just seems like he could not have been aware of this incident and Katy’s actions and complete lack of empathy to my father and our family,’ Chart said.
‘She doesn’t care about disabled veterans, much less any of the folks who care to attend the Invictus Games. I know Harry, himself, is a veteran and that’s important to him, and I would hope that he would not want anyone or anything associated with the games that had not shown themselves to be friends to the veterans community in the past.’
The private investor brought up a rumor that Perry was ‘paid a great deal of money’ to perform at the annual event, although there have not been reports about her compensation or any of the other performers – Noah Kahan, Nelly Furtado and Jelly Roll – getting paid.
As of May, Perry gained control of the $15 million property after she was awarded rights to the Montecito estate.
She officially filed the deed for the property and has taken over ownership from Carl Westcott.
She’s currently working on renovating the home since she is claiming $6 million in damages and lost income.
Chart told DailyMail.com about the emotional toll the real estate battle has been on his family. ‘It’s the elephant in the room. It’s been a constant source of stress…It’s painful. It was the house [Carl] wanted to die in and him not being able to stay there, it was really a very big contributor to where he ended up.
‘Had he still had that house, had he still been able to stay there, it would’ve been easier for us to manage getting care for him there.
‘As it turned out, after that household, we didn’t really have a place for him. He didn’t really have another residence. So that wound up in him going to a mental place where he’s kind of been since.’
Chart, who is married to Catlett ‘C.C.’ Cate, went on to accuse Perry of having ‘fake empathy’ when it comes to showing any care about her father’s dire situation.
‘I mean, she blows off the whole thing, sends her expensive lawyers to just absolutely make things as painful as possible on all of us while she’s gallivanting about the globe, showcasing her fake empathy from one end of the to the other.
‘And that I think is the thing that always bothers me the most is how fake she is. I mean, I think she’s the single most cringe and inauthentic human being on the whole planet for a long time,’ he claimed.
Last month, DailyMail.com exclusively reported that Orlando Bloom has been dragged into his fiancee’s real estate battle after he was served a subpoena to testify in court.
‘The family believes strongly that Orlando should testify as he was heavily involved in the property management once the keys were exchanged and he visited prior,’ a source close to the Westcott’s family told DailyMail.com at the time.
Katy will also be testifying in the trial beginning February 25.
Chart shared, ‘We absolutely cannot wait to see how she handles some of the false statements or the statements that she put in her deposition, which clearly contrast with some of the claims she is making during the damages phase.
‘She has a real issue of whether she’ll be able to be consistent with her testimony given some of her damages claims.’
When asked if Chart had ever met Perry in person, he told DailyMail.com that he was ‘prohibited from speaking about it’ since his family had ‘attempted mediation.’
The Dallas-based family man, however, has run into Prince Harry around town when he’s in Montecito and has seen Perry’s parents quite a bit.
‘I am loathed to get into anything that may have happened around settlement, but you can just think there was every incentive in the world for two business people to sit down and figure out a way to resolve this at a bunch of different points,’ he explained.
DailyMail.com previously revealed how Perry had become ensnared in the extraordinary dispute with Westcott after he claimed his judgment was clouded by powerful medication and ill health when he inked the deal on July 15, 2020.
He had only purchased the home in May of that year and moved in two months prior to his dealings with Perry’s representative, Bernie Gudvi, who agreed to pay him $3,750,000 more than he had just bought it for.
The then-80-year-old had been discharged from the hospital only four days prior to signing, having undergone a six-hour back operation.
He was on a potent cocktail of opiates to numb the pain, his lawyers said.
When the medication wore off, Westcott said he realized he’d made a mistake and informed Berkshire Hathaway by email on July 22 that he no longer intended to sell up.
‘The combination of his age, frailty from his back condition and recent surgery, and the opiates he was taking several times a day rendered Mr. Westcott of unsound mind,’ his complaint argued.
Perry and Bloom’s agents disregarded Westcott’s plea, writing to him days later to warn they would sue if he did not relinquish the property.
Westcott’s family took up the fight on his behalf after he became bedridden and mentally incapacitated because of Huntington’s disease, which attacks the brain and can cause progressive dementia.
She emerged victorious in the first phase of their trial last year after Judge Lipner ruled there was ‘no persuasive evidence’ that Westcott lacked the capacity to sign the contract.
‘There are no grounds for rescission. The contract must be respected,’ he concluded, leaving only the issue of damages – essentially how big a discount to award to Perry, who didn’t give evidence in person – to be determined.
The damages trial was originally scheduled to take place in November 2024, lasting several days. But Westcott’s lawyers pleaded for more time after Perry – worth an estimated $350million – hired 25 experts to scour the house for faults.
They will argue that the two-acre property needs repairs for water damage, an oak tree that fell on a building, and various other maintenance issues that have arisen while she waited years to move in.
She also wants around $3.5million in lost rent that she could have supposedly earned on the posh retreat despite stating at the time of the sale that she planned to raise her daughter there.
Perry’s lawyers argued at a June 20 hearing that she and Bloom were essentially ‘lay people’ and would rely instead on statements from professional construction experts.
But Judge Joseph Lipner insisted: ‘As I sit right here this minute I definitely expect Ms Perry to be a witness.’