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Born in 1953 in France, she has since challenged the cliché of the millionaire woman. We refer to Françoise Bettencourt, the only daughter of the main heiress of the cosmetic giant L’Oreal.
The woman continues to honor her mother’s, Liliane Bettencourt, motto, who always claimed that beyond a certain amount of money, people “lose their minds”.
On December 28, Françoise officially became the richest woman in the world, according to Bloomberg. However, the title does not deceive her.
“Once again, I know I am privileged, but as you can see, I don’t live in a mansion. We are not collectors of paintings and, as you can see, I don’t even wear jewelry,” the woman says to Le M Magazine during a visit to her home, where it was indeed proven that she lives in a two-story apartment in a modern, but relatively discreet building compared to the palace where her parents lived.
Her Story
Françoise is the granddaughter of Eugène Schueller, who founded L’Oreal in 1909 after discovering an innovative hair dye. Her father, André Bettencourt, was a minister under President Charles de Gaulle between 1960 and 1970.
Her childhood, despite all luxuries, was not always happy. Shy and introverted, her personality always clashed with that of her mother, an exuberant woman who once said that her daughter was always a step behind her.
Although she admits she is aware of the privilege of being born into this family, Françoise argues that she was never raised to worship money, with her parents teaching her to differentiate right from wrong.
“At home we didn’t talk about money. It was a word that was not easy to pronounce,” she says.
Regarding her family life, Françoise married the son of a L’Oreal businessman, with whom she had two children. Besides being a businesswoman, she is also a writer and a musician.
The most scandalous moment of her life was when she saw her family involved in a legal process, initiated by herself, against a friend of her mother, whom she accused of taking advantage of the fact that she was no longer lucid to take her money.
In 2017, after her mother’s death, she became the world’s richest woman, but at the end of last year, the woman, now 70 years old, achieved the milestone of being the first woman with more than 90 billion euros ‘in her wallet’.
