Gloria Vanderbilt leaves most of her estate estimated at $200 million to younger son Anderson Cooper
Actress, fashion designer, and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt, who died in New York on June 17, has left nearly all of her estate to her youngest son Anderson Cooper.
She left nothing to her estranged middle son Chris Stokowski. Vanderbilt, 95, was the great-great-great-granddaughter of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Her will, filed on Monday in the Manhattan surrogate court, states that the fashion icon's eldest son, Leopold 'Stan' Stokowski, is set to get her Midtown pad in a co-op at 30 Beekman Place. 'All the rest' of her property is set to go to the popular CNN host. The exact value of Cooper's inheritance was not immediately known.
Cooper, during a radio interview with Howard Stern in 2014, had said that he did not expect to inherit his mother's fortune, which is estimated at $200 million.
"My mom’s made clear to me that there’s no trust fund. There’s none of that,” Cooper told Stern. "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 life? From the time I was growing up, if I felt like there was some pot of gold waiting for me, I don’t know if I would have been so motivated."
Chris had reportedly cut himself off from the family 40 years ago over a dispute with his mother's psychiatrist. Chris' father, composer Leopold Stokowski, was Vanderbilt's second husband.
Cooper told Page Six in 2016 that he 'did reconnect and reconcile' with his long-lost half brother after releasing a film about their mother called 'Nothing Left Unsaid.'
Chris’s former fiancée April Sandmeyer had then told Page Six that Vanderbilt respects Chris's privacy. "I think she respects [Chris’s] privacy and [not mentioning him] is out of love for him. She knows he doesn’t want to be in public eye. He doesn’t want the public’s attention," she said.
Cooper, in a tribute, said Vanderbilt 'desperately craved' love and family. She married four times - Hollywood agent Pat DiCicco when she was just 17 years old; 63-year-old Leopold Stokowski when she was 21; Hollywood director Sidney Lumet; and, then, Wyatt Cooper (Cooper's father).
