Elizabeth Hurley’s Son Has Been Cut Off From The Family Fortune

Who’d have thought that there was trouble in the Hurley household? After all, Damian and Elizabeth’s respective social media pages seem to indicate that they’re both in a good place. Yet those images don’t tell the full story. You see, a hugely painful shadow has been cast over the pair in recent times.

Yep, Elizabeth and Damian could only watch as a bitter legal dispute raged on for more than 12 months. The youngster’s inheritance was the subject of the case, but the money being discussed wasn’t his mom’s. In fact, it came from his dad’s side of the family. The latter was an incredibly wealthy man named Steve Bing.

According to the website of British newspaper the Daily Mail, Steve was handed roughly $600 million from his clan in the past. That was a drop in the ocean for his father, though, as Peter Bing is said to have a fortune of about $2.7 billion. Jaw-dropping figures, right? Mind you, Damian’s dad wasn’t just known for his vast quantities of cash.

Much like Elizabeth, Steve had ties to the film industry, too. He served as a producer on a number of projects, including Sylvester Stallone’s Get Carter. On top of that, he also earned a writing credit for 2003’s Kangaroo Jack and provided money to the budget of the festive classic The Polar Express.

But in June 2020 tragedy struck. Steve passed away suddenly that month at his home in Los Angeles, California, leaving his family behind. He’d only turned 55 a couple of months before. It was a horrible situation made even sadder due to the state of his relationship with Damian at the time.

You see, Steve had only just opened up a dialog with his son that year, contacting Damian when he turned 18. Prior to that, the teenager hadn’t really known his dad – they were essentially strangers to one another. Why? Well, as per the Daily Mail, Elizabeth’s ex-partner was largely responsible.

The newspaper reported that Elizabeth and Steve were together for roughly a year-and-a-half before she found out she was pregnant with Damian in 2001. Unfortunately for the actress, though, that joyous news didn’t go down too well with her boyfriend. Instead, he pretty much denied that the kid was his.

According to Steve, he and Elizabeth had other lovers while they were an item, so the producer refused to acknowledge Damian as his son. Yet it didn’t stop there. To further separate himself from the situation, he drew up a legal document a few months into the pregnancy as well.

His newly drawn-up will made it clear that Steve didn’t have any interest in being part of Damian’s life, or offering him financial support. And it actually went even further than that – he also planned to ignore other kids belonging to him who were “now living or hereafter born.” Wow! Talk about stepping away.

Steve’s stance on that didn’t really change over the next few years, even though a second child emerged from his past. Yes, before he and Elizabeth got together, the millionaire had been introduced to a woman named Lisa Kerkorian at the back-end of the 1990s. They subsequently hit it off, but the romance only lasted for half a year.

Looking back at that time, Lisa informed the Daily Mail, “[Steve] was living a life I didn’t want to participate in, so he and I went our separate ways very early on.” Following the split, though, she then discovered that she was carrying a baby. The mom eventually gave birth to a little girl named Kira Kerkorian.

Anyway, even though in 2004 it was scientifically proven that Kira was Steve’s daughter, he rejected the news, just as he had with Elizabeth. So yes, Damian has a half-sister who went through the very same thing. Heartbreaking stuff, wouldn’t you agree? Then again, the situation started to change as the duo got older.

Like we mentioned earlier, Steve finally reached out to Damian after the latter turned 18 in 2020. But he also extended an olive branch to Kira prior to that, too, as he wondered if they could see each other. According to Lisa, this coincided with her ex-husband’s passing back in 2015.

Lisa told the Daily Mail, “Kira was interested [in meeting Steve]. I think she saw it as an opportunity to make amends, to heal the past and possibly get to know her grandparents and her cousins from Steve’s sister Mary.” Damian was in a similar spot as well once his dad came forward.

Tragically, though, their attempts at a reconciliation were dashed after Steve lost his life. We can only imagine how Damian and Kira felt at the time. As for Elizabeth, she shared her thoughts via an emotional Instagram post in June 2020, which included some photos of the pair while they were a couple.

Elizabeth wrote, “I’m saddened beyond belief that my ex Steve is no longer with us. It’s a terrible end. Our time together was very happy and I’m posting these pictures because although we went through some tough times, it’s the good, wonderful memories of a sweet, kind man that matter.”

“In the past year we had become close again,” Elizabeth added. “We last spoke on our son’s 18th birthday. This is devastating news.” What reconnected the actress to her former partner, then? Anything in particular? Well, as it turns out, Steve was trying to ensure that his two kids would keep their inheritance from his side of the family.

Now let’s be clear here. Lisa informed the Daily Mail that Steve’s wealth had been heavily depleted prior to his passing. So it wasn’t about adjusting his own will – this was something else entirely. Yep, back in the 1980s Steve’s super-rich dad Peter had made provisions for any future grandchildren as part of his own financial arrangements in the form of half a dozen independent trust funds.

Lisa explained, “These were six separate trusts with separate tax benefits, the only identifying language determining who the beneficiary was of each trust being birth order because there were no grandchildren born in 1980. If there were... [fewer] than six grandchildren, then the remaining trusts would be split equally.”

Still with us? Awesome! Anyway, if we keep that in mind, Peter had four grandkids by 2019. Alongside Damian and Kira, there were Anton and Lucy Ellis – the children of Steve’s sister Mary. Yet the patriarch of the Bing clan dropped a bombshell on everyone in the spring of that year.

Incredibly, Peter didn’t want to include Damian or Kira in the system he put together. So, he took his grievances to a courtroom in March 2019. To say he was serious would be a huge understatement! But why was Steve’s dad hell-bent on excluding the pair from eventually inheriting part of the Bing fortune? What had they done?

In truth, Kira and Damian hadn’t done anything wrong – all the legal drama was being driven by something else. What, then? Well, Peter’s big issue was that Steve hadn’t been married to either Lisa or Elizabeth when they got pregnant. This means that the babies were technically “born out of wedlock.”

Due to that, Peter believed that Damian and his half-sister shouldn’t have been included in the inheritance. Pretty harsh, wouldn’t you agree? Steve fought back, though. Yep, with Elizabeth and Lisa by his side, he challenged his dad’s argument in the courtroom, ahead of a massive moment in July 2019.

After months of uncertainty, it was decided that Steve’s children had a valid claim to their respective inheritances. That meant Damian was in line to receive up to a whopping $250 million in the future. Yet unfortunately for the youngsters, Peter didn’t give up in his quest to stop that from happening.

You see, Peter contested the ruling, and just a few months on from Steve’s passing the courts overturned the original outcome. As a result of that October 2020 decision, both Damian and Kira were no longer entitled to the money. Instead, their two cousins were due to receive a larger payment of over $550 million each. Ouch!

Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth couldn’t believe what had transpired during that spell, with the results hitting the news in July 2021. So the Hollywood star shared some very strong words with the Daily Mail in the aftermath of it all. She was particularly aggrieved that Steve’s hard work had counted for nothing in the end.

Elizabeth said, “When Stephen [passed away], he died thinking his children were going to be taken care of. What Stephen wanted has now been callously reversed. I know Stephen would have been devastated. [He] fought very hard in his last year to have his children recognized and repeatedly told me how incredibly important this was to him.”

“[Steve] was happy beyond belief that the trial verdict ruled that Damian was to be treated like his sister’s children as far as the trust was concerned,” Elizabeth continued. “I’m just relieved that [he] will never know that Damian’s relatives were ultimately successful in their appeal against the original trial verdict.”

Lisa offered her views to the newspaper as well. Much like Elizabeth, she brought Steve up during the chat, but that’s not the only thing she spoke about. The mom also focused on the impact this ordeal had on both Kira and Damian. In her mind, the loss of the inheritance wasn’t the biggest issue here.

“As a mom, I wonder why on earth this had to happen,” Lisa noted. “Why make two innocent kids into victims? It’s been horrible – forget about the actual legality of it all. This is their grandfather saying, ‘You don’t count, and I don’t want you to be a part of our lives because your mom was not married to my son.’”

Lisa continued, “Damian and Kira have been disinherited from the Bing family trust. There’s no recourse, they can’t go back. They lost. It’s been very painful for them and left a family void for Damian and Kira to deal with.” At that point, she then turned her attention to their late dad.

“I can tell you Steve loved his children and regretted not being there for them [when he was alive],” Lisa said. “He expressed remorse to me for not being a father to them and he lived with the guilt of that.” That’s a revelation which seems to add another layer of sadness to the latest twist in a sorry tale.

Anyway, you’re probably wondering how Damian reacted, too. Did he share Elizabeth and Lisa’s outrage? Well, if the young model felt that way, he certainly didn’t show it. His first Instagram post off the back of the media breaking the story was pretty simple – and more than a little heartwarming.

Alongside a photo of his nearest and dearest, Damian wrote, “Grateful for my beautiful family, today and every day.” As you can see, there’s no hint of any pent-up anger or bitterness. Regardless of that, though, some of the model’s followers still wanted to offer their support in the comments section of the post.

One Instagram user wrote, “This is honestly the classiest way to handle this horrible thing that happened. So much respect [to you].” Many other people concurred, before a different person then focused on Damian and Elizabeth. They noted, “It’s tough but you have your mother’s support. And there is nothing better than that.”

Mind you, one more comment stood out from the rest. A user wrote, “Family are the people you feel safe with and who love you for the person you are, unconditionally. People who are relatives by DNA but never show you any warmth or comfort don’t have the right to call themselves your family. You can choose your family and you chose well.”

Speaking of Damian’s close family, that’s got us thinking about something else – is he in line to receive an inheritance from them? Well, while that information certainly isn’t as public as the dispute we’ve been looking at, he could well inherit a not-inconsiderable sum. After all, the website Celebrity Net Worth claims that Elizabeth has a fortune of $50 million.

Yet whatever the future holds, Damian still has to navigate the minefield of emotions that come from being shut out by your relatives. On that note, Lisa had one last thing to say to the Daily Mail. She revealed, “After Steve died, Kira wrote Peter a letter and it was returned unopened. Mary and her children have shown no interest either.”

Lisa then concluded, “The greatest sadness here is that Peter Bing didn’t view this as an opportunity to get to know his grandchildren as a tribute to his son’s life. It’s a despicable reflection of how poorly a family can treat its own members.” Given everything that has happened, you might not blame Elizabeth or Damian for nodding in agreement.