While my friends received gifts including keepsake jewellery, a one-off ride in a limousine or a birthday party to celebrate turning 16, my parents had an altogether different surprise for me. To my total shock, they gave me a trust fund, a percentage of which I’d be able to access – a bit like a monthly salary – from the age of 18. The fund was worth £40m. I’m an only child, so the money doesn’t have to be carved up.
I’ve always known our family was extremely wealthy – we had two fully staffed homes worth over £20m each, one in London, the other in continental Europe, along with fast cars, multiple foreign holidays and my expensive boarding school education. But I didn’t even know what a trust fund was until that day, over a decade ago.
Aged 18, I started receiving £20,000 a month which is paid to me via a neutral, third party trustee – a fiduciary responsible for allocating the fund to me as per my parents’ wishes. I immediately squandered £2,000 on a pair of Louis Vuitton trainers. It felt surreal and a bit reckless, but it set the ball rolling for my new lifestyle.
My parents’ only advice at the time was that I should keep the trust fund quiet. They didn’t set any rules, offer any advice on how to manage my money or line up a financial guru to do that for them. In hindsight, they probably should have done the latter. My mum chastised me for being wasteful because, for all their riches, she and my father had started with nothing, making their fortune from tech and investment banking.
My monthly drawings have increased every year in line with the paperwork drawn up by my father’s lawyer when I was 16 and are now £35,000. My parents scrutinise my every move with the money, fearing what I’ll do with it in the future. After all, come my 30th birthday in 18 months’ time I’ll be granted unlimited access to the trust fund, which is as tantalising as it is terrifying. In theory, I could blow the lot in a year because I do love to spend.
I’m the first to admit that I was born with the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth and I’ve played up to the stereotype of the typical trust fund kid, living a life of excess with a £100,000, two-week vacation in Barbados travelling by private jet, and regular trips to Ibiza, Dubai and Miami where I buy tables in top clubs, surround myself with hangers-on and burn through £15,000 in a night. I’ve got three cars, a designer clothes and shoe habit, and I’ve spent over £150,000 to date on cosmetic surgery.
Still, I’m caught in a strange, contradictory existence where part of me still wants to prove to my parents and myself that I won’t solely rely on my trust fund. I’ve set up three businesses in marketing and retail in the hope of making them proud.
But if I’m honest I don’t work very hard. There are days I think, ‘f**k it, I don’t need the money’ and will go off for a long boozy lunch or a massage, or hop on a plane somewhere instead of sitting at my desk. Having a fortune has extinguished much of my drive.
To observers, this must make a trust fund seem like a cushy number, and financially it is. But it’s also an albatross around my neck which has 100 per cent altered my relationship with my parents and friends.
As I’ve discovered, it’s impossible not to be adversely affected by my millions – in fact it’s the reason I allowed my childhood passion for performing arts and my dreams of one day being on the West End stage to fizzle out. I didn’t go to university or performing arts school to pursue my ambitions and now feel a diminished sense of drive as a result of the money.
Aged 28, I still live with my parents because they are elderly and I want to spend as much time with them as I can. Until I have full access to the fund, I wouldn’t be able to buy the sort of luxury property I’d like without a mortgage (due to my spending), which I wouldn’t want to do. Instead, I’ve invested in crypto currencies, stocks and various collectable items such as watches. Once I have access to the lump sum, I’ll definitely invest in properties and may even become an angel investor for start-up companies.
Although Mum and Dad get frustrated and annoyed when I fly off to the likes of Miami on a whim and comment that my spending is outrageous at times, they also acknowledge that they’ve had similar fun with their wealth. That’s why they’re lenient with me at the same time as having little confidence that I’ll manage it well in the future.
Over the years I’ve found myself confessing the source of my wealth to friends and associates, knowing that people can see I don’t work very hard yet not wanting them to assume that I can afford this lifestyle as a result of anything bad or illegal.
Some have been shocked by my admission, while others have drifted away, conscious that my millions mean we’re financially and socially at odds. Trusting people has become a minefield and I’ve had my fair share of so-called friends and partners who’ve only wanted to be with me for my money. That’s why it’s easier to be single right now, which of course can be very lonely.
Still, I’m conscious of how incredibly fortunate I am too and of what a difference this sort of money can make to others. I’m actively involved in a number of children’s charities which have become very dear to me, sponsoring fundraising balls and events and making cash donations, all of it totalling between £20,000 and £30,000 a year. I also give generously with my time to charity events.
My parents’ aim was simply to set me up for life. But there are days I wish I didn’t have a trust fund at all and that instead I was enjoying a fulfilling career on stage in the West End, living out my childhood dreams for the sense of achievement and satisfaction it would bring.
At the same time I’m also grateful for the cash and I’d be stupid to say otherwise, but I wish it had come to me as a lesser amount or in a different way. For example, a significantly smaller trust fund that would have provided me with just enough money to set up a business would then have inspired me to work hard, whereas now there’s rarely an incentive to push myself.
It’s not a conversation I can have with my parents as I don’t want to appear ungrateful or for them to know that their good intentions have actually burdened me for ever because they’re loving and it matters to me what they think of me and my life. I can imagine we’ll end up having to address the elephant in the room when the trust fund becomes mine in its entirety and all their fears – and mine – will surface.
It’s a lottery-win sum of money; the sort of figure that people refer to as life-changing whilst daydreaming of supercars, luxurious houses and tropical holidays, yet not realising that it can also alter the most important things in life such as relationships with loved ones and the ability to trust yourself and others.
As told to Sadie Nicholas
