Recommendations of the Editorial team
Sting’s children are doing well. He has six children, including Eliot Sumner, a musician, and Mickey Sumner, an actress. Sting supports their careers – but he doesn’t simply finance them with an inheritance. He recently made this clear on “CBS Sunday Morning.”
“Or whether I told them, ‘Guys, you have to work. I’m spending our money. I’m paying for your education. You have shoes on your feet. Go work,'” he said. “It’s not cruel. I think there’s a kindness there and a trust that they’ll find their own way. My kids are tough.”
Sting admitted that his children had an “extraordinary work ethic” – probably because he refused to tell them: “You don’t have to work.” This is exactly what he described as “a form of abuse that I hope I never experienced.” He added: “The working class works and wants to work. I am one of those people, I love work.”
Sting and his roots
His own work is, of course, a little different from what most people associate with work that comes from a working-class background. Most recently, he adapted his musical “The Last Ship” for the Metropolitan Opera. The piece is a tribute to the shipbuilders in Newcastle, his hometown, and originally premiered in 2013. Over the course of his career, Sting has also released 15 solo albums and five more with The Police.
It wasn’t always like that. When Sting looks back on the time before he broke into music, he remembers taking any job that made money. “I took jobs. I worked in an office for a while. I worked on construction sites. I went to sea as a musician on a cruise ship, or I taught in a mining village – all the while playing in bands,” he said. When asked if the goal was to become a rock star, he replied: “No, I wanted to make a living as a musician. And that’s still how I define myself. I’m not a rock star.”
