Originally appeared on E! Online
Sting doesn’t want to leave his children with literal fields of gold.
Over a decade after the 74-year-old announced he wouldn’t be leaving his six children much of his fortune—estimated to be hundreds of millions—Sting confirmed that’s still his plan.
“The worst thing you can do to a kid is to say, ‘You don't have to work,’” the Grammy winner told CBS Sunday Morning in an interview that aired May 3. “I think that's a form of abuse that I hope I'm never guilty of.”
Plus, he doesn’t think they need it.
“All of my kids have been blessed with this extraordinary work ethic, whether it's the DNA of it or whether I've said to them, ‘Guys, you got to work. I'm spending our money. I'm paying for your education. You’ve got shoes on your feet—go, get to work.’”
He continued, “That's not cruel. I think that's there's a kindness there, and a trust in in them that they will make their own way. They're tough, my kids.”
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The comments from the “Desert Rose” singer—who is dad to two adult children with ex-wife Frances Tomelty and four with wife Trudie Styler—echo his previous sentiments about his wealth and posterity.
“I told them there won’t be much money left because we are spending it,” Sting (real name Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner) told the Daily Mail in 2014, noting at the time he had over 100 people on his payroll. “We have a lot of commitments. What comes in, we spend, and there isn’t much left.”
Even then, the musician noted his children (whose ages now range between 30 and 49 years old) were fairly self-sufficient.
“They rarely ask me for anything, which I really respect and appreciate,” he said. “Obviously if they were in trouble, I would help them, but I’ve never really had to do that. They have the work ethic that makes them want to succeed on their own merit.”
And Sting isn’t the only celebrity to share similar sentiments. Shortly following the first birthday of Anderson Cooper’s son Wyatt Morgan Cooper, the CNN host shared insight into his plans for his son’s future.
"I don't believe in passing on huge amounts of money. I don't know what I'll have. I'm not that interested in money, but I don't intend to have some sort of pot of gold for my son," he said during an interview on the Morning Meeting podcast. "I'll go with what my parents said, which is, 'College will be paid for, and then you gotta get on it.'"
For more insight into celebrities’ financial situations, read on.
