14 DAY TRIAL // Though he had millions in the bank, late actor Philip Seymour Hoffmann rejected the idea of setting up a trust fund for his biological children, fearing that such a move would spoil them and turn them into “trust fund kids.”
The news today according to The New York Post is that the actor rejected the idea of setting up a trust fund for his children shortly before his death in February of this year. The actor's accountant was the one who came up with the idea, but Hoffman wasn't big on it and instead opted to leave his entire multi-million dollar fortune to his longtime partner Mimi O'Donnell instead.
O'Donnell is the mother of his three children and Philip must have considered that she was the best person to administer his funds after his passing in the best interest of their children. The issue has been brought up in court and documents show that the actor, who died of a drug overdose earlier this year, opposed the idea of setting up bank accounts for his children.
His thinking was that by leaving them with trust funds, they would become spoiled, so he opted to leave all of his money to their mother and his partner. Some of the legal paperwork discloses discussions Hoffman had with accountant David Friedman in which he disagrees with the trust fund idea.
Hoffman's children, Cooper, 10, Tallulah, 7 and Willa, 5, are represented in court by attorney James Cahill Jr. and he stated in court that Friedman, the accountant, “recalled conversations with (Hoffman) in the year before his demise where the topic of a trust was raised for the kids and summarily rejected by him” because he didn't want them to grow up as “trust-fund kids.”
The documents also explained why Hoffman never married O'Donnell, despite the fact that they had been together for years and had three children together. The conclusion was that the actor “simply didn't believe in marriage.”
The Oscar-winning actor might have not wed O'Donnell, but the accountant claims the two behaved like married people and had “substantial” joint bank accounts. In a later statement, the accountant adds that “The size and nature of the jointly held assets support the position that [Hoffman] regarded [O’Donnell] as the natural object of his bounty.”
Also in his will, Hoffman mentioned that he wanted his children growing up in or near “the borough of Manhattan [or] Chicago, Illinois, or San Francisco, California,” claiming these were important cultural hubs.