The Rolling Stones star Charlie Watts, who died in 2021, has left £30million of his fortune to his family, The Metro reported recently.
UK probate papers have shown that the drummer’s will left the bulk of his fortune, which totalled £29.6million except for the value of his estate in France, to his loved ones.
Most of the money left by Mr Watts will go to his widow Shirley, 83, with his car collection to be handed out according to the specifications in his will. The instructions for the cars were not made public, unlike those for his money.
Could not drive
Ironically, Mr Watts could not drive and was known to sit in the cars he owned listening to their idling engines as a form of relaxation.
He is believed to have owned at least five “vehicles of significance”, according to Drive Australia, including an early-era Bugatti, a Lamborghini Miura, a 1937 Lagonda Rapide, a yellow Citroen 2CV (the same as the one featured in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only), and a Maserati-powered Citroen SM.
Charlie Watts died on 24 August 2021, following an operation on his heart. His will had been drawn up in 2017 and the executors were told to use the income from his estate to support his heirs.
Inheritance to pass to daughter
When Mr Watts’ wife dies, the inheritance will pass to his daughter Seraphina and his sister, Linda Rootes, sister-in-law Jackie Fenwick and Jill Minder and his brother-in-law Stephen Shepherd.
Mr Watts married Shirley in 1964 before the Rolling Stones became a global success and was regarded as the ‘sensible’ member of the band. He had played with the Stones since 1963 and appeared on every album.
While Mr Watts had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 2004 having given up smoking in the late 1980s but had been given the all-clear after following a course of intensive radiotherapy.
Shortly before his death last year, he had been forced to pull out of the Rolling Stones’ No Filter tour of the US after undergoing the operation on his heart. He died in a London hospital surrounded by his family and was said to be one of the greatest drummers of his generation.
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