Daniel Craig has been James Bond for the last fourteen years and has amassed a sizeable fortune. The actor is worth an estimated $150 million, earning $20 million alone for his appearance in the upcoming No Time to Die. As such, you’d think his children would get a big inheritance on the event of his death. Think again, though.
Craig recently gave an interview to Saga Magazine, in which he strongly came out against handing his children an inheritance, saying:
“I don’t want to leave great sums to the next generation. I think inheritance is quite distasteful. My philosophy is to get rid of it or give it away before you go.”
While this may not be music to the ears of his daughters, I’m definitely with Craig on this. In my experience, a large trust fund and a guaranteed multi-million dollar inheritance is a great recipe for making assholes. After all, why bother trying too hard at anything when you know you’ll always have a safety net right below you? Of course, Craig’s daughters aren’t ever in danger of being truly poor, but at least they’ll have to succeed on their own merits rather than their father’s.
And as a campaigner for numerous causes and a patron of tons of charities, Daniel Craig has many opportunities to give it away. Recently, he’s been doing work for the Opportunity Network, holding an auction for a guided set visit for No Time to Die in order to raise money to get college access to students from low-income backgrounds. He’s also done a lot of work for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, as well as campaigning for HIV/AIDs awareness, homelessness charities and various human rights causes.
In any case, if that $150 million has to go somewhere, far better it be poured into these charities than simply enrich the next generation.