The sad and lonely lives of the world’s richest kids

There’s a darker side to being super-wealthy, from Putin’s two secret sons who ‘live in isolation’ to £90k-a-week clinics for depressed kids

Imagine growing up in isolation in a mansion near Lake Valdai, north-west of Moscow. Your only visitors are your private tutors for music, swimming and gymnastics, and you never interact with other children. Every time you travel it’s by armoured train, private jet or yacht, protected at all times by elite officers. And you rarely ever see your mother or father. This is reportedly the experience of Vladimir Putin’s two secret sons, Ivan, aged nine, and Vladimir Jr, five.
Although the Russian president is famously tight-lipped about his personal life, last week The Dossier Centre – a project launched by Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky – revealed details of the lives of Putin’s two sons with his rumoured mistress, the Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva.
Putin divorced his wife, Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Ocheretnaya, in 2013 after three decades of marriage, and although he has publicly acknowledged having two daughters with her – Maria, 39, and Katerina, 38 – he rarely talks about them. Now it has come to light that he also has two young sons, who are subject to even greater secrecy, and have been kept under wraps since birth.
According to The Dossier Centre, the boys can’t be found in state databases as “they have had the kind of cover documents typically made for spies and people under state protection”. They live a life of almost total isolation, and the Russian leader’s older son, Ivan, “mostly plays alone or with the adults”.
Although they rarely spend time with their parents, Ivan is said to play in ice hockey matches with his father. Despite Putin’s criticism of Western animation, Ivan has found his own way to rebel – he is reportedly a fan of Disney cartoons and movies and enjoys dressing up as his favourite characters.
It sounds like an incredibly lonely and sad existence, even when your Papochka has a reported $200 billion (£154 billion) in the bank. But the Putin boys are just an extreme example of the feelings of isolation often experienced by the offspring of the uber-wealthy.
Most of us might find it hard to muster sympathy for those set to inherit billions, but not Clay Cockrell. He’s a therapist to “ultra-high-net-worth individuals” in Manhattan and says he feels pity “on a daily basis” for his clients who grew up in extreme wealth. “It’s unnatural, it’s unhealthy, and it can be damaging, toxic and even deadly,” he says. “Look at how many of these people die from suicide or drug overdoses.”
Cockrell says that while it’s human for all parents to want to protect their children and stop them experiencing hardships, when you eliminate all the challenges, you risk a child not developing resilience. “This leads to an inner fragility and a lot of self-doubt,” he explains. “Knowing you will inherit a huge amount of money also robs you of your sense of ambition and accomplishment.”
Indeed, the side effects of “affluenza” are very real. A study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence found that the children of the very rich experience higher levels of pressure to succeed than their peers, and higher levels of anxiety and depression. A report from Arizona State University found that privileged kids were more likely to develop addictions to alcohol, cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy compared with national norms.
But unlike mere mortals, “poor little rich kids” have their own luxury rehab centres to check into. Think of the discreet clinic in Iceland Succession’s Kendall Roy goes to, to “decompress”. Paul Flynn is the chief executive and co-founder of Harbor London, a concept clinic in Belgravia which looks more like a five-star hotel suite, with a back entrance for high-profile clients. Flynn specialises in treating addiction, and his clinic caters to children of the one per cent from all over the world.
“I’d say around half the people we treat are children of ultra-wealthy families,” he says. “The classic case is someone in their early 20s, with that failure-to-launch kind of problem – when you’re from a wealthy family so you have no drive – but that’s not always the case. We recently treated a guy who was outwardly very successful and running the family business. But because it was his father’s business, he always had feelings of failure and inadequacy, and was abusing drugs and alcohol to cope.”
For £60,000-90,000 a week, clients – some of whom are as young as 16 – are treated by a personalised one-to-one treatment squad including a psychiatrist, a yoga teacher, a “neuro-feedback practitioner” and a chef. Some clients stay as long as six months and have an intensive after-care programme when they leave.
“When your identity is wrapped up in wealth, it can be an enormous burden,” says Flynn. “You can feel ashamed of it, you might be constantly worrying about people’s intentions. You might feel there are no authentic relationships in your life.”
Historically, many of the families who have topped the rich lists have also topped the most dysfunctional lists, too. Growing up a Getty was certainly no picnic – John Paul III killed himself with drink and drugs and could never recover from his kidnapping ordeal. Sir Paul Getty, the British philanthropist, struggled for decades with substance abuse.
One person who has spoken extensively about the challenges of growing up with more money than you could ever spend is Abigail Disney, 64. The granddaughter of Roy O Disney (co-founder of The Walt Disney Company) has given away $70 million since she turned 21, and says: “I don’t want a private jet, because it hollows you out from the inside.”
“I feel hyper-conscious about what wealth does to people,” she says. “You end up being surrounded by people who don’t tell you ‘no’, ever. And as my father’s drinking problem grew, he was surrounded by people who wouldn’t say, ‘You have a terrible drinking problem. You need to go get some help.’”
Abigail Disney has talked about the inferiority complex that rich kids with famous last names often feel. “I did grow up with this doubt about myself. Like, did Yale really say yes because I was that good, or did Yale say yes because of my last name? I’ll never know,” she says. “And in every interaction, I never get to make a first impression because people have already thought about what they want to think about you.”
“Growing up with immense wealth can feel like you’re constantly under scrutiny and can’t make mistakes,” says Hilda Burke, psychotherapist. “There’s a real lack of accountability and autonomy, because there’s always someone ready to swoop in and pay to make problems go away. Often with these types of clients you can see real emotional deprivation and poorly formed attachments, because all the child-rearing has been outsourced to nannies and boarding schools. It’s definitely a double-edged sword.”
According to The Dossier Centre, the Putin family reportedly advertised for an English teacher for the boys, with a monthly salary of $8,500. The ad indicated that the family prefers candidates with a South African passport and says the family “lives in isolation”.
Ellen (not her real name), 27, is a tutor for the children of Russian oligarchs and says she feels nothing but sympathy for her “overworked and overindulged” charges. “I’ve seen 16-year-olds with electrodes stuck on their heads to stimulate brain waves because their parents thought it would help them do better in their exams,” she says. “Many of them live without their parents in massive empty mansions in London, playing video games all day and night because there’s no one to tell them what to do. It’s a very sad and empty life.”
As the realm of the mega-wealthy grows ever larger – Forbes estimates a current global population of more than 2,700 billionaires whose collective wealth equals some $14 trillion – there is growing evidence that children of the affluent are becoming increasingly troubled. It might be the epitome of a first-world problem, but “inheritance guilt” is becoming so common that wealth therapists have sprung up to help the children of the super-rich deal with their unique set of problems.
Amanda Falkson is a psychotherapist who specialises in advising people who have inherited a fortune. “Money can disconnect people. It can make them feel set apart socially, which is why they often keep old friends around them,” she says. “It’s common to see them add these friends somehow onto the payroll, which, while well meant, naturally creates its own complicated dynamic.”
But some “poor little rich kids” have turned their ivory tower upbringings to their advantage. Yoko Ono grew up in a life of isolation and immense privilege as the child of one of Japan’s biggest banking dynasties. In her childhood home, Kudan House, up to 20 servants would wait on her, but she had no friends. “It didn’t occur to me that I was supposed to play with people,” she said. But she has credited her lonely childhood with inspiring her creativity.
Many uber-wealthy parents are now realising the curse that comes with inheriting a huge sum, and doing everything they can not to pass their money on to their kids. When Warren Buffett pledged in 2006 that he would be giving away 99 per cent of his now $145 billion fortune, he shocked the world. But it’s becoming increasingly common. In 2010 he joined with Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates to create the Giving Pledge. To date, 244 wealthy people from 30 countries have promised to contribute a majority of their money to philanthropic causes.
Buffett’s youngest son, Peter, who is now 66 and a successful composer, said he didn’t even realise his father had amassed so much wealth until he was 25. “We never thought about an inheritance. We never assumed we would be getting anything at any time, and we weren’t bitter or thinking that we should for some reason,” he said. “We just grew up in a house where you work hard and you make your way in life and hopefully you have a well-lived life based on all sorts of criteria.”
Most of us might not have to worry about our children inheriting billions, but the struggles of the super-wealthy reveal that there are lessons for all of us around talking about money with your children. “It’s important to teach children how to handle money, however much a family has,” says Clay Cockrell. “It’s key to expose them to another world, especially when you’re wealthy and they’re only associating with other privileged children. So many of my clients who grew up in extreme wealth say, ‘I knew we had money, but we never discussed it’. That’s an important first step.”
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