Sophia Forrest, daughter of Twiggy Forrest, is happy her father gave away her inheritance
THE daughter of mining magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, who famously donated $400 million to charity, says she’s glad her father gave away her inheritance.
THE daughter of Australian mining magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, who famously donated $400 million to charity in May, says she’s glad her father gave away her inheritance.
Sophia Forrest, 22, says she “not entitled” to any portion of her father’s $5.78 billion net worth, according to figures from Forbes.
“Inheritance has never really made sense to me,” Ms Forrest told Fairfax Media’s Sunday Life magazine.
“You watch it tear families apart and it baffles me. You’re not entitled to that money, you haven’t earned it, you haven’t worked for it – I don’t see why you think it should be yours. So we all agreed to give it all away,” she said.
“It’s a relief to know it’s not my problem. It’s going to better things. I don’t need it. I’m going to work and make it on my own.
“Growing up, I shied away from being associated with ‘Twiggy’. Not my dad – I’m so proud of him, but ‘Twiggy’ is a media construct. [Because of it] people just tended to make assumptions and think the worst of you, in a way.”
Ms Forrest has just graduated from acting school and landed a major role as a pregnant schoolgirl in Channel Nine’s Love Child.
“I love acting,” she said. “I love telling Australian stories. It’s an industry I’ve always had an interest in. You can change people’s lives through storytelling.”
She’s also starred alongside Russell Crowe in the post-World War I drama The Water Diviner. Crowe shut down rumours the pair were dating on Twitter last week, after they were photographed together at the Sydney premiere of The Mummy and shared a selfie on Instagram.
Dear @WomansDayAus can you not stuff your shit filled pages with deliberate lies about relationships I've never been in ? Thanks in advance.
— Russell Crowe (@russellcrowe) June 26, 2017
As the chairman of the Fortescue Metals Group, Mr Forrest is one of Australia’s 10 wealthiest people and was a nominee for the 2017 Australian of the Year.
Most of the $400 million he recently donated will go towards medical research, with $75 million going to research for cancer treatments, $75 million going to early education, $50 million to creating equal opportunity and combating indigenous disadvantage, $75 million for higher education and research and $75 million to removing modern slavery from human history.
Ms Forrest is the middle child - she has an older sister Grace, 23, and a younger brother Sydney, 17.
Mr Forrest and his wife Nicola have previously said that they hope their donation will encourage other wealthy Australians to donate some of their earnings to good causes.
“Nicola and I have been very fortunate to build up a couple of businesses from scratch ... we decided that if we ever got to the point where we could afford to, we would put that wealth to the highest social use,” Mr Forrest said.
“We really want to encourage institutions to specialise in cancer research and to get them the capital they need in order to do so,” he said.
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