Anderson Cooper has revealed that he will not be inheriting any money from his mother Gloria Vanderbilt’s $200 million fortune.
The CNN host said his 90-year-old mother, the great-great-great-granddaughter of the railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, has told him he won’t get any of her wealth when she dies — and he says he doesn’t need the money.
“My mom’s made clear to me that there’s no trust fund. There’s none of that,” Cooper told Howard Stern on his radio show.
“I don’t believe in inheriting money … I think it’s an initiative sucker. I think it’s a curse.
“Who’s inherited a lot of money that has gone on to do things in their own life? From the time I was growing up, if I felt that there was some pot of gold waiting for me, I don’t know that I would’ve been so motivated.
“I’m doing fine on my own, I don’t need any,” he said.
Cooper, 47, makes around $11 million a year at CNN and lives in a converted firehouse in Greenwich Village and also has a Hamptons estate in Quogue. Last November he signed a contract extension to keep him at CNN through the 2016 presidential election.
Vanderbilt inherited most of her wealth from her father, Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt, an heir to the Vanderbilt railroad fortune. Her father died when she was just over a year old and left her a trust fund that was worth $5 million in 1925. Cooper’s father, Wyatt Emory Cooper, was Gloria’s fourth husband and died in 1978 from a heart attack when Anderson was young.
And the Silver Fox said he prefers to focus on his father’s life rather than his wealthy ancestors.
He told Stern, “I’ve never paid attention to it, honestly, like my dad grew up really poor in Mississippi … that’s a healthier thing to pay attention to than like some statue of a great-great-great-grandfather who has no connection to my life.”