The late Philip Seymour Hoffman decided that he didn’t want his children to live off of his money for the rest of their lives, court documents show. Instead, the actor left his money to his longtime girlfriend and the mother of his children.
Documents obtained by the New York Post show that attorney James Cahill Jr. spoke with Hoffman’s accountant, David Friedman, who remembered talking to Hoffman about creating a trust for his children.
Friedman “recalled conversations with [Hoffman] in the year before his demise where the topic of a trust was raised for the kids and summarily rejected by him,” Cahill wrote. Cahill was appointed by a court in the interest of Hoffman’s three children and filed the documents in Manhattan Surrogate’s Court on July 18.
Hoffman decided to give his $35 million fortune to Mimi O’Connell, assuming that his longtime girlfriend would “take care” of their children. “Friedman also advised that he observed Hoffman treating his partner/girlfriend . . . in the same manner as if she were a spouse,” Cahill wrote.
The will was written in 2004, a decade before he died of a heroin overdose in February at age 46. His two daughters - Tallulah, 7, and Willa, 5 - were not born yet, but Cooper, now 10, was. Hoffman specified that Cooper should grow up in Chicago, San Francisco or New York.
Cahill also said there wasn’t anything suspicious in the will and that a court should easily approve it.
Hoffman’s next movie, A Most Wanted Man just opened in select cities this past weekend. John le Carre, who wrote the book the film is based on, wrote a touching essay in the New York Times this weekend to remember Hoffman.
image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com