AITA for refusing to let my brother use our late father’s voicemail in his podcast?

My father left exactly one voicemail that I still have saved. It is not profound. He called from a hardware store because he could not remember which lightbulbs I needed, then spent forty seconds describing two nearly identical boxes. At the end he said, “Call me before I buy the wrong thing again.”

He died eight months later.

My older brother, Nate, produces a small podcast about ordinary family stories. For an episode about our father, he interviewed relatives, used clips from old home videos and asked me to record a memory. I agreed to the interview but said I did not want him using the voicemail.

Nate asked me to reconsider. He said our father’s voice would make the episode feel alive, and the message captured his exact combination of competence and confusion. He offered to use only the final sentence.

I still said no.

The voicemail was left for me. Hearing it is one of the few private rituals I have when grief arrives unexpectedly. I did not want strangers hearing it between an advertisement and the closing music.

Last week Nate sent me a private preview of the episode. The voicemail was in it.

He said he had found the same recording in a backup of our father’s phone. Apparently Dad saved many outgoing calls through an accessibility app he was testing. Nate’s argument is that the file did not come from my phone, so I did not own the only copy or the final decision. He also said he would remove it if I truly could not bear it, but wanted me to hear how respectfully it was used.

I told him that asking after editing it into the episode was pressure, not permission. I refused to approve the release unless the clip came out.

Nate removed it. He also cut my interview and told the family that I no longer wanted to participate. That is technically true, though I had not asked him to remove my interview.

Our mother thinks we are both treating our father’s voice like property. She says Nate should have respected my first no, but I should not be able to prevent him from using a recording he independently found for a loving tribute.

What troubles me is that my objection is both personal and controlling. I do not want the voicemail used because it feels like mine. But Dad’s voice and Nate’s grief are not mine.

AITA for insisting the clip be removed?