Marie Osmond isn’t budging on her plan to leave her children out of her inheritance.
The former country singer, 63, opened up about her plans to donate her wealth to charity instead of leaving it to her seven kids.
“Honestly, why would you enable your child to not try to be something? I don’t know anybody who becomes anything if they’re just handed money,” Osmond told Us Weekly. “To me, the greatest gift you can give your child is a passion to search out who they are inside and to work. I mean, I’ve done so many things from designing dolls and much more. I love trying and I wanna try everything. I’m a finisher.”
Osmond, who found fame at a young age as a member of the famous Osmond family, is mother to eight children: Stephen, 39, Rachael, 31, Jessica, 35, Brandon, 26, Brianna, 24, Matthew, 23, and Abigail, 18. In 2010, her 18-year-old son, Michael, died by suicide.
The singer firmly believes that leaving wealth can discourage the younger generation from working hard.
“That’s one of my rules with my kids. If you start it, you finish it, you don’t ever have to do it again, but you gotta finish. And, I just think all an inheritance does is breed laziness and entitlement. I worked hard and I’m gonna spend it all and have fun with my husband,” shared Osmond, who remarried ex-husband Stephen Craig in 2011, more than 25 years after their divorce.
Osmond first revealed her financial plans back in 2020 during a segment on The Talk in which the hosts were discussingKirk Douglas, who died in February of that year at age 103. The movie star left most of his multimillion-dollar fortune to charity.
“I’m not leaving any money to my children,” Osmond explained to her co-hosts. “Congratulations, kids. My husband and I decided that … I think you do a great disservice to your children to just hand them a fortune because you take away the one most important gift you can give your children, and that’s the ability to work.”
Osmond added that children of wealthy families often “don’t know what to do” and “get in trouble.” “Let them be proud of what they make, and I’m going to give mine to my charity,” she added.
Despite her statements, Osmond elaborated that she has no problem helping out her children financially through their lives, whether it’s to purchase a home or a car.
Encouraging her children to find financial success on their own is an important lesson for Osmond, who previously explained that she has found tremendous value throughout her six-decade career in the entertainment industry.
“I’ve been very blessed to see my work as work and my life as life,” she told Yahoo Life in January 2022. “I think that’s where in show business a lot of people get lost. Maybe their self-worth is invested only in their work. But I love life and I don’t have to be on stage to be happy. I can always be happy.”