Daniel Craig calls inheritance ‘distasteful’ and reveals his children won’t receive his fortune
The James Bond star says he would rather ‘get rid’ of his money than give it to his children.
James Bond is known for blowing his cash on cocktails and casinos.
Yet the actor who plays him has said he would rather “get rid” of his money than give it to his children because he finds inheritance “quite distasteful”.
Daniel Craig, worth an estimated £116 million ($221 million), suggested he would be happier to spend it or donate it to good causes.
In an interview published this week in Candismagazine, he noted that Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born US industrialist and one of the wealthiest men in history, had given away the equivalent of billions of dollars today before his death in 1919.
“Isn’t there an old adage that if you die a rich person, you’ve failed?” Craig said. “I think Andrew Carnegie gave away what in today’s money would be about $11 billion, 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. I think inheritance is quite distasteful. My philosophy is: get rid of it or give it away before you go.”
Craig has two daughters — one in her late 20s called Ella from his previous marriage to Fiona Loudon, and a two-year-old with his second wife, Rachel Weisz. Weisz, 51, also has a 15-year-old son, Henry, with the film director Darren Aronofsky.
Craig and Weisz rarely talk about their children in public and have not revealed their daughter’s name. Craig said that privacy was “hugely important”.
“There is a side of my life that I just choose not to share and not to discuss.”
Craig is not the first celebrity to announce they will not leave their fortune to their children. Sir Elton John, who has two sons with David Furnish, has said he wants to leave his children in a “sound financial state” but that it was “terrible to give kids a silver spoon”.
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, has previously said he will give his three children just “a minuscule portion” of his estimated $130 billion fortune.
Craig’s interview came as part of the promotional campaign for No Time To Die, his final outing as 007. Now 53, he said the role had taken a heavy physical toll. Recalling his first appearance as Bond in the 2006 film Casino Royale, he said: “I started off doing these films very physically and I never really stopped.
“These days I still do as many stunts as I can because I enjoy the physicality of it. But I have got older and hopefully a bit wiser. I don’t bounce back as well as I did back then.”
No Time To Die will be released in Australia on September 30.
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