Steve Bing and Elizabeth Hurley: A toxic relationship, alleged threesome and 18-year-old son Damian ‘he never met’
Real estate tycoon, film producer and philanthropist Steve Bing died after he leaped off the 27th floor of his luxury apartment building in LA's Century City at around 1 pm on June 22. The 55-year-old film financier had penned the screenplay of 'Kangaroo Jack' and backed hit movies like 'The Polar Express' and Rolling Stones concert movie 'Shine a Light'.
Born on March 31, 1965, as Stephen Leo Bing, he inherited an estimated $600 million fortune from his grandfather, Leo S Bing, at the age of 18 and subsequently dropped out of Stanford University in his junior year to pursue a career in Hollywood. Apart from his close liaison with former president Bill Clinton and massive contributions to the Democratic Party and its candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bing's life was peppered with high-profile lawsuits involving two separate paternity cases.
A multi-millionaire playboy, Bing first locked eyes with actress Elizabeth Hurley in 2000 just when she separated from Hugh Grant after a 13-year-long relationship. The two were together for less than a year and after a brief, non-exclusive relationship, they separated in March 2001. Steve, 35, reportedly wooed Liz, 36 with "private jets, chunky gold Rolex watches, sapphire and diamond rings and all-expenses-paid trips to New York and Europe", according to Mirror.
"Whenever I saw Steve and Elizabeth together, they always seemed incredibly happy and very much in love," a close friend Henry Dent-Brocklehurst told the Daily Mail at the time. Moreover, a source told Vanity Fair that the two went for a trip to Las Vegas, which involved a threesome with another woman. Rumors were rife that Liz was "very much in love" with the aspiring filmmaker but the romance fizzled away until they allegedly reconnected and spent time at his luxury suite at the Hotel Bel Air and vacationed at Elton John’s holiday home in Nice.
Soon after, Hurley told Bing he was the father of her child. It became one of the most controversial paternity feuds in Hollywood as Bing issued a nasty statement suggesting that the child wasn't his. "Ms Hurley and I were not in an exclusive relationship when she became pregnant. It is her choice to be a single mother," he said in a statement but vowed to be "extremely involved and responsible" if he was found to be the father.
Liz's stance was totally different and she even said she loved him. "I loved Stephen enormously during the 18 months we were together. Contrary to erroneous reports, we were still very much happy together when I discovered I was pregnant," she said, adding, "I was completely loyal and faithful to Stephen throughout this time as, indeed, he assured me he was to me." Amid the fiasco, reports said he'd been dating Armanu model Brenda Swanson, who told Daily Mail at the time, "Liz called him and went mad. She was demanding to know who I was. She was crying and went nuts."
The same year, Bing got embroiled in a legal soup with former professional tennis player Lisa Bonder when ex-husband of 28 days, Kirk Kerkorian, suspected the Bing was the father of her daughter. Not just that, Bing was also said to be romantically connected to Uma Thurman and Naomi Campbell.
A DNA test confirmed that Bing was the father of both children, indeed. Elizabeth Hurley's son Damian Charles Hurley was born on April 4, 2002, and Bing said he would pay £100,000 ($1.2 million) a year into a trust that he will get when he turns 18. Bing and Kerkorian settled their dispute out of court. Much later, Dr Peter Bing, Damian's grandfather, tried to cut off Damian from the will as he claimed he was ‘born out of wedlock’. In court papers, Peter claimed that as far as he knows, Steve has ‘never met Damian’. However, in July 2019, an LA judge ruled that Damian and his half-sister Kira Kerkorian were indeed beneficiaries to Dr Bing’s trust.
Bing's relationship with Liz has become the talk of town after his tragic death. "He had a child with Elizabeth Hurley. He never saw his son who is now 18," one tweet read and another said, "After reading the article no wonder he committed suicide the beast came to collect his dues. A true dead beat dad. Even his father Peter Bing denied inheritance to his grandson Damien and when he found Elizabeth Hurley was pregnant he rejected him."