Recluse from scandalous family becomes first 100billion dollar woman
The first woman to amass a fortune of $100bn is a reclusive intellectual who brought scandalous family secrets to the surface when she launched a court battle to protect her mother.
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers is the heiress of L’Oreal and the world’s richest woman, owning with her family a 35 per cent stake in the company. With shares rising 35 per cent in a year after beauty sales bounced back strongly in the years since the pandemic, the 70-year-old L’Oreal vice-chair is now worth £790m. But how much do we really know about her?
L’Oreal was founded in 1909 in the Parisian suburb of Clichy by Francoise’s grandfather Eugene Schueller, a chemist who wanted to produce and market a hair dye he had invented. His company became a global empire worth £209bn today, expanding to sell skincare, make-up, haircare, hair colour and fragrance under prestigious brands including Kiehl’s, Lancome and Garnier.
A list celebrities such as Cindy Crawford, Beyonce and Helen Mirren have worked with the cosmetics firm over the years, famously using the slogan: “Because I’m worth it” in TV adverts.
Majority shareholder Francoise, who is known for being reclusive as well as seriously wealthy, inherited her world’s richest woman title from her mother Liliane, who died in 2017 aged 94. Ten years before her mother’s demise, Liliane became embroiled in a political, familial and financial scandal that shocked the French nation when Francoise sued her companion, writer and photographer Francois-Marie Banier.
Man in 30s dies after being stabbed in park sparking police probe
Liliane Bettencourt (L) and her daughter Francoise (AFP via Getty Images)Liliane had first met the socialite on a photoshoot in 1987 and the pair hit it off immediately, with the creative taking her to art shows and theatre productions and introducing her to his actor and artist pals. Banier is gay but while their relationship wasn’t physically intimate it was certainly a platonic love affair, at least on Liliane’s part. According to magazine Vanity Fair, in a 2008 letter the late heiress wrote to him: “With you, I am like a mother, a lover, all the feelings pass through me. It makes me tremble.”
When businesswoman Francoise later accused Banier of “abus de faiblesse” or abuse of weakness, saying he had swindled nearly £1bn from her frail mother over two decades, family secrets would be revealed and a bitter rift developed between her and her mother. The scandal was dubbed the French Watergate by Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president who would later be caught up in the crossfire.
Liliane and Francoise, her only child with her politician husband Andre Bettancourt, had different interests. Philanthropist Liliane had a glittering social life, enjoying the limelight and close ties with French leaders. Intellectual Francoise prefers privacy over social events with a love of books, authoring a five-volume study of the Bible and a genealogy of Greek gods. She likes to play the piano for several hours a day.
Francois-Marie Banier (WireImage)
Liliane Bettencourt (AFP via Getty Images)Tom Sancton, author of The Bettencourt Affair, said: “She really lives inside her own cocoon. She lives mainly within the confines of her own family.”
Throwing herself into her new friendship which had introduced her to a new creative world, Liliane would lavish Banier with property, paintings by Picasso, Matisse and Mondrian, insurance policies and cash totalling hundreds of millions of euros. Shortly after her father Andre’s death in 2007 at the age of 89, Francoise got wind of a servant overhearing discussions for Liliane to formally adopt Banier as her son and heir and filed a criminal complaint.
“That was too much,” she said. “This man had denigrated my father, manipulated my mother, and shattered our family.”
The lengthy investigation became known as the Bettencourt Affair, recently retold in Netflix docuseries The Billionaire, The Butler and The Boyfriend. The scandal produced endless stories for the eager French press in something of a PR disaster for the family and their billion dollar firm, with rumours of a takeover by Swiss firm Nestle taking hold at one point.
One dark part of L’Oreal’s history dredged up in the midst of the scandal concerned founder Eugene, Francoise’s grandfather, having been investigated as a Nazi collaborator after World War Two. This had previously caused controversy when Francoise married Jewish businessman Jean-Pierre Meyers in 1984, converting from Catholicism to Judaism herself and raising their children Jean-Victor and Nicolas, both L’Oreal directors, in the Jewish faith. Jean-Pierre’s rabbi grandfather had been murdered in Auschwitz.
Eugene SchuellerAs the investigation rumbled on in 2010 Liliane’s butler Pascal Bonnefoy was revealed in the press to have recorded hours of conversations with the heiress’s financial advisors and lawyers. Leaked transcripts unveiled tax evasion schemes, secret Swiss bank accounts and illegal political contributions, with President Sarkozy dragged into the scandal.
It became clear elderly Liliane was mentally confused just as her daughter had claimed and when the case finally went to trial in January 2015, nine other defendants stood alongside Banier in the dock, including a minister accused of illegally receiving money on behalf of Sarkozy’s presidential campaign.
Russian model killed after calling Putin a 'psychopath' was strangled by her ex
Prosecutors suggested Francoise’s mother had first become mentally incapable in 2006 following a fall. Prosecutor Gerald Aldige went on to accuse Banier of imposing “his control over [Liliane] like a spider spinning its web. And once he had her in his net, he never let her go.” The writer claimed in return he had been the only person to make Liliane laugh.
Helen Mirren (Getty Images for L'Oréal Paris)
Kendall Jenner (WWD via Getty Images)Banier was found guilty, sentenced to two and a half years in prison and ordered to pay £137m in damages to the Bettencourt family, with seven defendants convicted of lesser sentences alongside him including Liliane’s financial advisor, lawyer and notary. The minister was cleared. An appeal and second trial the following year saw Banier’s prison sentence suspended and the millions in damages cancelled.
Following a complaint from the photographer in 2015, Francoise found herself under investigation for bribing her star witness with $700m in payments. She denied this and in return launched a bid to recover her mother’s master paintings which had been gifted to Banier, worth £77m. Lawyers forged a secret deal where both sides withdrew their actions.
Suffering from Alzheimer’s and under legal guardianship of her daughter since 2011, Liliane lived out her final days in an Art Deco mansion in Parisian suburb Neuilly-sur-Seine. She was cared for by a different family member and said in 2008: “I don’t see my daughter anymore and I don’t wish to. For me, my daughter has become something inert” and in a TV interview had once said: “My daughter could have waited patiently for my death instead of doing all she can to precipitate it.”
Francoise’s new $100bn milestone makes her the world’s 12th richest person, with fellow French citizen Bernard Arnault, founder of luxury group LMVH which owns labels Louis Vuitton and Fendi, ahead of her.
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
