Buzz Aldrin family feud intensifies as ex-astronaut sues two of his children

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is suing two of his children and a business partner for elder exploitation and fraud while accusing them of “slander” for suggesting the 88-year-old Aldrin has dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, claims that his son Andrew and daughter Janice, who oversee both a private company and a non-profit in Aldrin’s name, have been using his legacy along with company funds “for their own self-dealing and enrichment”. According to the suit filed in Florida, Andrew has pilfered nearly half a million dollars from his father’s personal account in the last two years.

Aldrin’s adult children deny the allegations and in a statement said they were “deeply disappointed and saddened by the unjustified lawsuit that has been brought against us individually and against the foundation that we have built together as a family to carry on Dad’s legacy for generations to come”.

Previously Aldrin’s children had applied for co-guardianship over their father on the basis that he is in “cognitive decline”. Aldrin is scheduled to undergo a competency examination on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to his lawyers. “Nobody is going to come close to thinking I should be under a guardianship,” Aldrin said in an interview last week, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The suit also accuses Aldrin’s children of forbidding him to remarry and of having “undermined, bullied and defamed” all of Aldrin’s personal romantic relationships.

Also named in the suit is Christina Korp, who like Aldrin’s children is an administrator in both the for-profit and non-profit Aldrin organizations. Korp is a board member of the Buzz Aldrin Space Foundation and vice-president of marketing at Buzz Aldrin Enterprises.

Elder abuse is a key allegation on both sides of the legal imbroglio. Aldrin’s children, via the Aldrin Foundation, have suggested that his legal action against them, and even his tweets about the situation, are the product of an unnamed third party, not their father. After Aldrin sent a tweet claiming that Korp had been terminated, Jeff Carr, a spokesman for the Aldrin Foundation, said in a statement: “We are not sure who is responsible for the tweet regarding Christina but we are confident Buzz did not write this.”

Carr continued by expressing “concern for Buzz’s potential vulnerability to manipulation by other parties seeking to gain access and control of Foundation and personal resources”.

Both the foundation and Aldrin have declined to comment further on the ongoing battle. “A full explanation with be forthcoming in the following days,” said Aldrin’s attorney, Robert Bauer.