Daniel Craig and More Celebrities Not Leaving Their Children Inheritances

Credit: Shutterstock(3)

Daniel Craig and More Celebrities Not Leaving Their Children Inheritances

On their own! Daniel Craig, Ashton Kutcher and more celebrity parents have decided not to leave their children with trust funds. "Isn’t there an old adage that if you die a rich person, you’ve failed?” the Defiance actor told Candis in an August 2021 interview. "I think Andrew Carnegie gave away what in today’s money would be about 11 billion dollars, which shows how rich he was because I’ll bet he kept some of it, too. But I don’t want to leave great sums to the next generation.” The England native called inheritances “quite distasteful.” The James Bond star explained, "My philosophy is get rid of it or give it away before you go.” The Golden Globe nominee became a dad in 1992 when his and ex-wife Fiona Loudon's daughter Ella was born. In late 2018, Craig and Rachel Weisz welcomed a baby girl. When the couple wed in 2011, Craig also became the stepfather to the actress’ son, Henry, with ex Darren Aronofsky. [sendtonews type="float" key="8jjVYLOIzb-3112314-14453"] As for Kutcher, the That ‘70s Show star shares daughter Wyatt and son Dimitri with his former costar Mila Kunis. In November 2019, the Iowa native told Dax Shepard why they didn’t plan to leave the little ones any money. "I'm not setting up a trust for them,” Kutcher explained during an “Armchair Expert” podcast episode at the time. "We'll end up giving our money away to charity and to various things. My kids are living a really privileged life, and they don't even know it. And they'll never know it, because this is the only one that they'll know.” The couple were intentional about raising “really resourceful” children, the Ranch alum went on to say. "As long as they know what to do when they don't have things ... hopefully they'll be motivated to have what they had, or some version of what they had,” the Punk'd creator explained. "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.” He and Kunis hoped to instill these qualities in their kids by taking them on frequent camping trips and not giving presents during Christmas. Keep scrolling to find out why more celebrities aren’t giving their kids trust funds, from Marie Osmond to Sting. [podcast_block]

Credit: Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock

Anderson Cooper

The Anderson Cooper 360 host announced in September 2021 that his son Wyatt would not receive an inheritance.

“I don’t believe in passing on huge amounts of money,” Cooper said during an interview on the “Morning Meeting” podcast. “I’m not that interested in money, but I don’t intend to have some sort of pot of gold for my son. I’ll go with what my parents said: ‘College will be paid for, and then you gotta get on it.’”

Credit: Courtesy of John Rahim/Shutterstock

Don McLean

"I stopped supporting my daughter last year,” the “American Pie” singer told the Daily Mail in September 2021, three months after Jackie told Rolling Stone that she was under “a constant state of fear” growing up. "I said to my daughter, ‘If you speak out about me and trash me, I’m going to disinherit you.’ She’s been automatically disinherited — that’s almost a $3 million trust fund that went down the tubes."

Credit: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Daniel Craig

The Knives Out star was "exhausted" after welcoming his youngest child, he exclusively told Us Weekly in November 2019. Two years later, he called inheritances "distasteful."

Credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Gordon Ramsay

"[My money is] definitely not going to them, and that’s not in a mean way," the chef told The Telegraph in February 2021. "It’s to not spoil them."

Credit: Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Marie Osmond

During a March 2020 episode of The Talk, the then-cohost said, "I'm not leaving any money to my children. I think you do a great disservice to your children to just hand them a fortune because you take away the one most important gift you can give your children, and that's the ability to work. You see it a lot in rich families where the kids, they don't know what to do and so they get in trouble. Let them be proud of what they make. I'm going to give mine to my charity.”

Three years later, Osmond defended her position during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly.

“Honestly, why would you enable your child to not try to be something? I don't know anybody who becomes anything if they're just handed money,” she explained in January 2023. “To me, the greatest gift you can give your child is a passion to search out who they are inside and to work. I mean, I've done so many things from designing dolls [and much more]. I love trying [and] I wanna try everything. I'm a finisher. That’s one of my rules with my kids. If you start it, you finish it, you don't ever have to do it again, but you gotta finish.”

The Grammy Award winner, who revealed she has helped her children when they need it, added that an inheritance breeds “laziness and entitlement.” She quipped: “I worked hard and I'm gonna spend it all and have fun with my husband!”

Credit: Michael Simon/Shutterstock

Ashton Kutcher

The Two and a Half Men alum saw rich people as "evil" growing up, he told Shepard.

Credit: ERIC GAILLARD/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Sting

"I certainly don’t want to leave them trust funds that are albatrosses round their necks," the Police frontman told The Daily Mail in June 2014. "They have to work. All my kids know that, and they rarely ask me for anything, which I really respect and appreciate."

Credit: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock

Gene Simmons

"They will never be rich off my money," the KIIS rocker said of his two kids in a 2007 Gene Simmons Family Jewels episode. "Because every year they should be forced to get up out of bed and go out and work and make their own way. ... I don’t want them to say, 'Thanks, dad, for making me rich.' No, you wanna be able to stand on your own two feet and say, 'I did that.'"