The richest woman in the world, Lilian Bettencourt, has died at the age of 94
The richest woman in the world and L'Oreal heiress Lilian Bettencourt died on September 21 at the age of 94. Her daughter Francoise Bettencourt Myers said in an official statement that the mother "left quietly and calmly" at her Paris home.
Lilian Bettencourt was the main shareholder of the cosmetics giant L'Oreal and ranked 14th in the list of the richest people in the world according to Forbes magazine. In March 2017, her fortune was estimated at 29.1 billion euros. Since 2012, Bettencourt has stopped appearing in public, but her name has constantly appeared in the headlines in connection with a lawsuit with her family, which demanded that she be declared incapacitated due to senile dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
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Lilian Bettencourt was born in Paris in 1922 in the family of Eugene Schueller, founder of the cosmetics company L'Oreal, and Louise Madeline Bert, who died when the girl was five years old. At the age of 15, Lillian got a job at her father's company, gluing labels on shampoo.
In 1950, she married Andre Bettencourt, a French politician and future minister under the government of Charles de Gaulle. The couple lived together for 57 years, they had an only daughter, Francoise Bettencourt. For many years, the couple could not get rid of accusations of supporting the Nazis. Lilian was a member of the pro-fascist organization of the Cahulars, which was funded by her father, and her husband wrote several anti-Semitic articles. However, by the end of the war, Andre Bettencourt joined the French Resistance and later regretted writing articles.
Lillian inherited the company after her father's death in 1957 and participated in the life of L'Oreal for more than 50 years. Francois Dahl was appointed CEO, who breathed new life into the company and created the brand that we now know.
In 1987, together with her daughter and husband, Lilian founded the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, whose goal is to help develop humanitarian, medical and cultural projects.
Throughout her career at L'Oreal, her position has been subjected to relentless criticism, and in 2007 Bettencourt was awarded the Black Planet Award — the anti-award of the German organization Ethecon Foundation, which is given to those who harm the planet.
Liliane Bettencourt regularly became the richest person in France and for many years was the richest woman in the world. Her life has always been saturated with the smell of money and politics with a touch of scandal.
The heiress was closely associated with at least three French presidents, her name almost never left the pages of the gossip columns. For most of her life, Bettencourt was famous for her name, but not for her actions, although she worked in her father's company from the age of 15, starting as an intern.
After the death of Lilian's husband, Andre Bettencourt, in 2007, Francoise Bettencourt Myers, her only daughter, went to court, accusing photographer Francois-Marie Bagnier of taking advantage of the state of his mother, who had given him gifts worth 1.3 billion euros since 1987. These gifts included, among others, a life insurance policy worth 253 million euros in 2003 and another policy worth 262 million in 2006, 11 works of art worth 20 million euros, including paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, Delaunay and Leger, a photograph of surrealist Man Ray and cash. Banier denies all charges.
The scandal got a new round in 2008, when the daughter gave the police recordings of conversations between her mother and the manager. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy also came under suspicion that he used Bettencourt's poor mental health and received campaign funding in 2007.
In October 2011, the court ruled that Lilian Bettencourt suffers from dementia (senile dementia), and gave her daughter control over her mother's health and income (about 17 billion euros and 33 percent of L'Oreal shares).
From left to right in the front row at the 1979 Chanel show are: Claude Pompidou, Bernadette Chirac — the wife of Mayor Jacques Chirac at that time, Lilian Bettencourt and Eva Barr, the wife of the Prime Minister of France in 1976-1981.
With the Greek opera singer Maria Kallas in 1968.
The Bettencourt House in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
The 1970s.