Rich and famous people who refuse to spoil their kids
Pennywise parents

Aaron Spelling

Chuck Feeney

One-time billionaire Chuck Feeney, co-founder of the Duty-Free Shoppers group, transferred his wealth to his Atlantic Philanthropies foundation in the 1980s. Committed to a "giving while living" mantra, Feeney’s renowned for teaching his children the value of money by making them have holiday jobs and work their way through university. Now the 89-year-old and his wife Helga live in a relatively modest rented apartment in San Francisco.
Read more about the life of the secret billionaire who gave it all away
Gene Simmons

Gene Simmons, who came from a poor immigrant family before making it big as a rocker in glam rock band KISS, said of his two kids: “Every day they should be forced to get up out of bed and go out and work and make their own way.” He's not lying, as his family all starred in reality TV show Gene Simmons Family Jewels over seven seasons.
Nigella Lawson

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Jackie Chan

Simon Cowell

Gordon Ramsay

Gordon Ramsay’s no-nonsense attitude applies both in the kitchen and at home. The multimillionaire chef – worth $70 million (£54m) according to Forbes – revealed his kids sit in economy as “they haven’t worked hard enough to afford [first class]”. And when it comes to inheritance: “It’s definitely not going to them, not in a mean way; it's to not spoil them. The only thing I’ve agreed is they get a 25% deposit on a flat.” Ramsay thinks he’s been lucky in his career, and wants his kids to work hard in theirs. And it's already paying off, as Ramsay's daughter Matilda (pictured third from left) has already had her own children's cooking show Matilda and the Ramsay Bunch, which launched on UK children's TV channel CBBC in 2015 when she was only 14 years old.
James Brown

Sting

Kevin O’Leary

Although he has an estimated $400 million (£308m) net worth to play around with, Canadian businessman, investor and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary says he won’t be leaving any of it to his children so they acquire a work ethic. But he will ensure his children’s children and their kids can get an education thanks to a generation-skipping trust. The future looks bright for the O'Leary clan.
Elton John

Sir Elton claims to owe his children – Elijah and Zachary – a lot when it comes to calming down his extravagant spending habits, but that doesn’t mean his estimated £360 million ($467m) fortune (according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2020) will be going into their bank accounts. The superstar told Mirror Online: "Of course I want to leave my boys in a very sound financial state, but it’s terrible to give kids a silver spoon.”
Andrew Lloyd Webber

Ted Turner

Media magnate Ted Turner has signed the Giving Pledge, an initiative set up by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett in 2010, where the wealthy commit to giving away the majority of their wealth while they are living. Turner wrote in his Giving Pledge letter: “At the time of my death, virtually all my wealth will have gone to charity.” It looks like his kids don't mind too much as his children are involved in the charitable Turner Foundation, which was set up in 1990. He also launched the United Nations Foundation. Turner is currently worth $2.2 billion (£1.7bn).
George Lucas

The producer-director and father of four committed to giving up most of his wealth in his Giving Pledge letter. He plans to use the $4.5 billion (£3.4bn) made from selling the Star Wars franchise to Disney to fund education, which he believes “is the key to the survival of the human race.” Lucas is currently worth $5.3 billion (£4bn).
Find out more about Bill Gates's Giving Pledge and who has signed it
Bernard Marcus

Gina Rinehart

In May 2015, Australia’s richest person (pictured centre) – with a current net worth of $16 billion (£12.3bn) – lost a long-running legal battle with her children over control of a billion-dollar family trust set up by her mining magnate father. In the past she branded her three eldest children “slackers” who are “manifestly unable” to handle their inheritance.
Laurene Powell Jobs

Laurene Powell Jobs inherited billions when her husband Steve Jobs, one of the co-founders of Apple, died in 2011. Now worth $16.8 billion (£12.9bn), Powell Jobs (pictured with Apple's Tim Cook) has invested some of her fortune, buying stakes in several media outlets and in the parent of the NBA's Washington Wizards and the NHL's Washington Capitals in 2017, as well as setting up a non-profit to help low-income students enter higher education, as well as a charitable foundation focused on social change called the Emerson Collective. However, her three children with the late Jobs are not set to receive her fortune as the 56-year-old has declared that the family's billionaire status "ends with me".
Pierre Omidyar

Michael Bloomberg

The former mayor of New York made his $54.9 billion (£42.3bn) fortune from his eponymous media and financial data company. The father of two is a well-known benefactor, having given millions away. He’s also a signed-up member of The Giving Pledge, writing that nearly all of his net worth “will be given away in the years ahead or left to my foundation.” But it is unlikely that Bloomberg's two daughter, Georgina and Emma, disagree since they both work for philanthropic causes.
Warren Buffett

The so-called Oracle of Omaha is one of the billionaires behind The Giving Pledge, and has stated that he’ll give away 99% of his wealth. Buffett is currently worth $74 billion (£57bn). One of Buffett’s most famous quotes is about not leaving his vast fortune to his children: "I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing."
Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social networking site Facebook, and his wife Priscilla Chan know the value of the $85.3 billion (£65.7bn)-dollar empire they’ve created. And instead of handing their fortune over to their daughters Maxima and August, they’re going to let them find their own way in life. After the birth of their first daughter in 2015, the couple even pledged to donate 99% of their Facebook shares – about $45 billion (£34bn) at the time of pledging – to the Zuckerberg Foundation.
Melinda & Bill Gates

The couple founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 1994, then in 2010 created The Giving Pledge with Warren Buffett, a campaign that encourages the world’s wealthiest to commit most of their fortune to humanitarian causes. The Microsoft magnate doesn’t think it would be “good either for my kids or society” to leave too much to his three children – instead they’ll receive a rumored $10 million (£7.6m) each out of the $113.4 billion (£87.4bn) fortune.
Now read about the billionaires with no kids to leave their fortune to
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