Spencer Matthews has said leaving his children a huge inheritance would be detrimental.
The former Made In Chelsea star has three children with his wife Vogue Williams – Theodore, six, Gigi, four, and Otto, two – and naturally wants to give them the best chance of happiness.
He has decided that allowing them to earn their own money and feel the ‘sense of achievement’ that can come with that is a better gift than a huge bank transfer.
‘Suffer is too strong a word, but it’s very important that my kids have to challenge themselves and experience things on their own,’he stated to The Mirror.
‘There’s no point in doing well in life and then giving it all to your kids. It’s doing them a huge disservice.’
Spencer, 36, is the son of multimillionaire Eden Rock hotelier David Matthews. He attended the same school as Prince William – Eton College – where fees are currently £63,000 a year.
He has gone on to launch his own business, CleanCo, which sells alcohol-free spirits. Alongside the company, he has capitalised on the interest in him with podcasts and TV appearances. He has been a part of Celebrity MasterChef, The Jump, and Watchdog. Spencer is also an investor in his parent’s hotel, Eden Rock in the Caribbean.
Due to the multiple ventures, he has been able to amass quite the fortune – Spencer is estimated to be worth around £12.5 million according to The Sun.
Talking further about his decision, Spencer praised comedian Jimmy Carr, who became a father when his son Rockefeller was born in 2019, for his standpoint.
‘Jimmy quite eloquently talks about trust fund kids who are given everything, and he sees them as just being really unfortunate, actually and I would completely agree,’ he said.
The 52-year-old previously claimed on the Diary of a CEO podcast that children who inherit large sums of money are often ‘mentally tortured’.
‘Having stuff isn’t fun. Getting stuff is fun, right? It’s not the pursuit of happiness, it’s the happiness of the pursuit,’ he reasoned.
Spencer shared similar sentiments: ‘If you’re a young man who’s just given everything, or a young woman, who’s just given everything, you may not ever understand the need to work because you have what you think you want, and then, therefore, you won’t ever feel proud of yourself.
‘You won’t ever have a sense of achievement.’
He certainly is no stranger to graft as ultra-athlete Spencer has been training for yet another challenge.
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Later this year, he will be attempting to complete seven full Ironman Triathlons in seven continents in just a month. The challenge will see Spencer complete a 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride and a full 42.2km marathon in each of the seven continents, finishing in Antarctica.
His journey will begin in South Africa, before heading to Australia, Europe, North and South America, and ending in Antarctica.
Spencer is aiming to do all this in under four weeks, but reckons it could be possible in two weeks. This is to beat the current record of a person who completed the challenge in four years.
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