
Secret Billionaire: The Chuck Feeney Story
Chuck Feeney made his fortune co-founding Duty Free Shoppers, the retail chain that turned airport shopping into a global business, and then spent decades giving almost all of it away without telling anyone. This RTÉ Factual production gets him on camera, a rare interview for a man who spent years dodging journalists and instructing his lawyers to keep his name off every building and grant his money funded. The film traces how Feeney set up The Atlantic Philanthropies to distribute his wealth while he was still alive rather than after his death, a strategy he called Giving While Living, and how he kept flying economy and wearing a fifteen-dollar watch while billions moved out of his accounts into hospitals, universities, and human rights causes. Colleagues and beneficiaries describe a man who treated anonymity as a discipline, not a preference, and who saw giving the money away as unfinished business rather than legacy. By the time the foundation closed its doors, Feeney had given away nearly everything he made.