Why Marie Osmond won’t leave her kids an inheritance: ‘Breeds laziness and entitlement’

Marie Osmond is standing firm on her choice not to leave her children her multi-million-dollar fortune.

The country music singer and actress doubled down on her stance in an interview with Us Weeklyarguing that all inheritance does is “breed laziness and entitlement”.

“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,” said the 63-year-old, who has eight children from her two marriages, aged from 18 to 39.

Osmond – who is worth a cool $US20 million ($28 million) – further explained that wealth can discourage children from working hard.

“To me, the greatest gift you can give your child is a passion to search out who they are inside and to work,” she continued. “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.”

“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.”

The star married athlete-turned-motivational-speaker Stephen Craig for the second time in 2011, 25 years after they were divorced. She was also married to actor and composer Brian Blosil from 1986 to 2007.

It was in 2020 during a segment on her daytime talk show The Talk that Osmond first revealed her plans to leave her riches to charity when she dies.

“I’m not leaving any money to my children,” she said. “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.”