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By Michaela Gordoni
Sting decided not to leave his fortune to his offspring — for a good reason.
“The worst thing you can do to a kid is to say, ‘You don’t have to work,’” the musician said.
“I think that’s a form of abuse that I hope I’m never guilty of,” he shared. “All of my kids have been blessed with this extraordinary work ethic, whether it’s the DNA of it or whether I’ve said to them, ‘Guys, you got to work. I’m spending our money. I’m paying for your education. You’ve got shoes on your feet. Go to work.'”
He trusts his children to make their own success. He is the father of six: Joe Sumner, Fuschia Sumner, Mickey Sumner, Jake Sumner, Eliot Sumner and Giacomo Sumner.
He told PEOPLE in 2020, “My kids are fiercely independent. They’re not sitting there waiting for a handout at all, and I wouldn’t want to rob them of that adventure in life: to make your own living. It’s a wonderful and difficult thing to do.”
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“So I haven’t promised them anything. I’ll obviously help them if they’re in trouble, but they’re not waiting for a handout,” he said. “They’re too independent.”
Each of his children has varied careers, and a couple of them have followed in his footsteps to become musicians.
He’s said for over a decade that his children won’t receive financial assistance from him.
“I certainly don’t want to leave them trust funds that are albatrosses round their necks,” he told the Daily Mail in 2014. “They have to work. All my kids know that and they rarely ask me for anything, which I really respect and appreciate.”
Right now, the 74-year-old is focused on his play, “The Last Ship,” about the city he grew up in.
“It’s very personal to me. It’s about where I come from and therefore who I am in the world,” he said.
He continued, “I don’t think of myself as a celebrity. I don’t like to. I like to think of myself as a working musician with a story to tell. And the story is largely my experience in life where I come from, how I’ve navigated life, various chapters of my life to end up here in a very privileged and fortunate position.”
Sting is taking his play on a world tour, from England to France, Australia, the Netherlands and the US.
“I just wanted a bigger life than the one I was being offered,” he said, “and it was only later that I realized that where I’d been brought up was actually a gift.”
Ultimately, Sting hopes to pass down value and work ethic, not wealth.
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