5 celebrities who aren't leaving their fortune to their kids and why
Topics: Celebrity, Money, Parenting, Entertainment
Lucy Devine
Featured Image Credit: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Bloomberg Philanthropies
Topics: Celebrity, Money, Parenting, Entertainment
You might expect every celebrity to leave their fortune to their kids as part of their inheritance, but actually, there's a handful of celebs who have vowed not to leave their wealth to their children.
These days, celebrity kids are often criticised for being 'nepo babies', meaning they get a helping hand with their careers, due to benefitting from their parents' connections and unlimited wealth.
It seems that while some celebs are happy to help their kids in whatever way they can, others would rather they made their own way themselves, in a bid to become more independent and self-sufficient.
There are a number of celebrities who have in the past spoken openly about this, including the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Ashton Kutcher.
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Here's what they had to say...
Jagger has explained that he might leave his huge wealth to charity, explaining his kids don't need hundreds of millions of dollars to live well.
Jagger is dad to eight - Karis, 55, Jade, 53, Elizabeth, 42, James, 40, Georgia May, 34, James, 40, Gabriel, 28 and Lucas, 26. He welcomed his youngest don, Deveraux, eight, with girlfriend Melanie Hamrick in 2016.
"The children don't need $500 million to live well," he told The Wall Street Journal. "Come on." Instead he hoped to 'do some good in the world' by potentially leaving his millions to charitable causes.
Gates has three children - Jennifer, 30, Phoebe, 23 and Rory, 26 - with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates. And while he explained that his kids have had a 'great upbringing and education', he told the Figuring Out With Raj Shamani podcast that they had 'less than 1 percent of the total wealth because I decided it wouldn’t be a favor to them.'
“You don’t want your kids to ever be confused about your support for them and your love for them," he said.
"So, I do think explaining early on your philosophy, that you’re going to treat them all equally and that you’re gonna give them incredible opportunities, but that the highest calling for these resources is to go back to the neediest."
British chef Gordon Ramsay has explained that his huge wealth is 'definitely not going to them, and that’s not in a mean way'.
Ramsay, who is worth $220 million, told The Telegraph: "It’s to not spoil them. The only thing I’ve agreed with Tana is they get a 25 percent deposit on a flat, but not the whole flat.
“I’ve been super lucky, having that career for the last 15 years in the U.S. Seriously, it has earned a fortune and I’ve been very lucky, so I respect everything I’ve got.”
O'Neal has explained that he wants his kids - daughters Taahirah, Amirah, and Me’arah, and sons Shareef and Shaqir - to be educated, telling Good Morning America: "My motto is, ‘You have to get three degrees to touch some of my cheese'.
“You can have all the money in the world, but if you don’t have education, you can’t make it grow. I didn’t want to be like 80 percent of the athletes who stop playing and have nothing... So, I educated myself. I want that for my kids, too.”
In an interview with Dax Shepard on his podcast Armchair Expert in 2018, Kutcher explained that his children Isabelle and Dimitri won't be having 'a trust set up for them'.
Instead, he and Mila Kunis are planning on donating their money to charity and 'to various' things.
The reason behind Kutcher and Kunis' decision? Because their children already live a 'really privileged life' and 'don't even know it'.
"And they'll never know it because this is the only one that they'll know," Kutcher continued.
"If my kids want to start a business, and they have a good business plan, I'll invest in it. But they're not getting trusts."