Paris loses out: Hilton fortune pledged to charity
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUKN2636653220071226
Wow, good for him.
I have to check with my dad, but I think her grandfather is the Hilton who used to hang around the Trappist monastery my dad was a monk at back in the '50’s. He was a “monk groupie” of a sort, and considered joining the monastery himself. If he had, just think how the world would be without Paris! 
…but we’ll always have Paris.
But Barron Hilton challenged the will and after a nearly decade-long legal struggle
Ironically, the old guy only got the fortune in the first place by overturning his own father’s will, which had–yes–pledged the entire fortune to the same charity.
Cutting out the next generation is a family tradition, not a judgement on paris.
When I saw the news in the paper this morning, my first reaction was, why doesn’t he give, like, 2 billion of the 2.3 billion to the charity NOW? I mean, even I could live for a few years on a few hundred million dollars. So Simon’s remark doesn’t surprise me a bit. Leaving everything to charity after you’re dead seems kind of like freeing your slaves after you’re dead. It’s not bad, but you could go so much further.
The least he could do is give her a lifetime supply of little soaps and shampoos.
There’s a little Japanese play-within-a-play, IIRC, in a kabuki production where a “lion” throws its “cub” off of a cliff. Then it frets and waits, the cub crawls back to the top, and they dance a happy dance. The cub has survived a tough love survival test, and proved itself strong and able, as well a lion should be.
Maybe the Hilton history of contesting such wills is like that. Beat the will, and you deserve the takings. You have earned it in the best Hilton tradition.
Steven Hilton, one of Barron’s sons and president and chief executive of the foundation.
So Barron Hilton gives money to a foundation that is headed by his own family. It seems like a loophole to evade the death tax. Reuters gives him good press and the foundation that bears his family name gets free press. If Paris ever looses her celebrity status, and cannot cash in on the Hilton name, I am sure that there will be a high level job that involves little work within the foundation.
Seems to me the least he could do would be to donate Paris to another galaxy…
Larry Madden
