No. 11

Alexander McQueen left £50,000 to his pet dogs

With a characteristically eccentric final flourish, Alexander McQueen has bequeathed £50,000 of his £16m fortune to his beloved pet dogs.

The 40-year-old left another £50,000 to each of his two housekeepers, one of whom found him hanged in a wardrobe in his Mayfair flat nearly 18 months ago.

However, documents made public on Tuesday reveal that he left the bulk of his estate in a trust for his Sarabande charity, with the proviso they consider using this money to fund bursaries or grants for students at Central St Martin's College of Art and Design in London, where McQueen studied fashion.

Four other charities – the Terrence Higgins Trust, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the London Buddhist Centre and the Blue Cross animal welfare charity in Oxfordshire -– also received £100,000 each.

McQueen's fortune was valued at £16,036,500. He died on 11 February last year, when he hanged himself after taking a mixture of cocaine, sleeping pills and tranquilisers on the day before his mother Joyce's funeral.

Read more |  The Guardian UK, 28.07.11

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