Philip Seymour Hoffman left an estimated $35 million to Mimi O'Donnell, whom he never married, and refused a trust for his three children

Philip Seymour Hoffman died of a drug overdose on 2 February 2014. His 2004 will named Marianne "Mimi" O'Donnell, the mother of his three children and his partner, as executor and main beneficiary, with a trust for his oldest son if she died first. They never married. Papers filed in Manhattan Surrogate's Court on 18 July 2014 reported that his accountant, David Friedman, advised setting money aside in a trust for the three children and that Hoffman declined because he did not want them to be "trust fund" kids. Friedman said Hoffman treated O'Donnell "in the same manner as if she were a spouse." The court-appointed lawyer for the children recommended approving the will because nothing in it appeared suspicious. The estate was put at about $35 million. Property left to a spouse is generally exempt from federal estate tax and O'Donnell was not a spouse, so lawyers estimated combined state and federal tax at about $11.9 million; other estimates run to about $15 million^†. Reports of a wish that the children be raised in Manhattan, Chicago or San Francisco were not found in the filings read^†.