Kevin O’Leary’s mother hid an investment account from both her husbands — and died a wealthy woman

Shark Tank entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary only found out his mom was rich when she died.

“She kept this little account secret from both of her husbands her whole life, she was married twice,” O’Leary told the Motley Fool. “The executor called me up and said, ‘You’ve got to come down here, your mother has died a very wealthy woman.'”

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O’Leary said his mother, Georgette Bookalam, took 20% of the salary she earned working at a children’s clothing company and put it into a hidden account. She invested the money she saved — and it paid off.

Here’s what she was investing in, and why others might want to follow her lead.

O’Leary says his mother’s financial practices became ‘the core’ of his investment strategies

O’Leary says he learned important investing rules from his mother that he still uses today.

“She had this concept of setting something aside which became the core of my own investment philosophy,” O’Leary told the Motley Fool.

Bookalam put her savings into a diversified portfolio, 50% of which she invested into large cap stocks — stocks of companies valued over $10 billion — and 50% in telecom bonds.

“For some reason she was fixated on Telco bonds,” O’Leary said.

This diversification allowed Bookalam to build up sizable wealth by the time she passed. While O’Leary doesn’t follow this strategy to the letter (for example, his focus is on ETFs), he does focus on regular saving and diversification with his own trusts.

“I live off those trusts and so do my whole family and the charities we support, because they are designed to protect that wealth,” O’Leary said.

Read More: Vanguard reveals what’s coming for U.S. stocks — and it could be bad news for this group of investors

A secret personal bank account gave O’Leary’s mother financial independence

Ideally, everyone should set aside some of their salary each pay period and put it into savings. But many married couples put that money in a joint bank account, not a secret private investment account, which is what Bookalam used.

According to the US Census Bureau, 23% of couples did not have a joint bank account in 2023. But notably, nearly half of all women who got married between the ages of 20 and 24 only had joint bank accounts — they didn’t have any accounts separate from their spouse.

Joint bank accounts can make household planning easier, but they also make it hard for married individuals to have financial independence if they’re the only bank accounts they have.

For much of Bookalam’s early adulthood, true financial independence from her husband was impossible — Canadian women only gained the right to open a bank account without their husband’s signature in 1964.

It makes sense that any woman would want to ensure her financial independence when denied the ability to do so for so many years.

In addition, being financially dependent on a spouse can make it hard to leave if your relationship becomes unhealthy. In extreme situations, it can even lead to financial or economic abuse: when one partner seeks to control or hurt another using money.

In 2025, just over 5% of Canadian women reported their partners kept them from having or earning money, compared to 1.5% of men. There’s no indication that Bookalam experienced that, but for those who do, a secret bank or investment account can act as a form of protection.

Most people do not expect to experience abuse, but around 44% of Canadian women and girls who have been in a relationship report experiencing intimate partner violence at some point in their lives.

You don’t need to build up massive wealth in secret like O’Leary’s mother did. But keeping some money in a personal account just in case can help keep you safe — or even just give you an emergency fund to fall back on in stressful times.

If you think you or a loved one might be experiencing financial or economic abuse, the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the nonprofit Surviving Economic Abuse have tools to help.

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This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Kevin O’Leary’s mother hid an investment account from both her husbands — and died a wealthy woman

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