Fri. Jul 5th, 2024

Meet billionaire L’Oreal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, the richest woman in the world, who has a net worth of $82.1 billion<!-- wp:html --><p>Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, the world's richest woman and heiress to the L'Oréal fortune.</p> <p class="copyright">FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP via Getty Images</p> <p>Françoise Bettencourt Meyers inherited one-third of L'Oreal from her mother in 2017, making her the richest woman in the world with a net worth of $82.1 billion, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/francoise-bettencourt-meyers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to Bloomberg</a>.<br /> Bettencourt Meyers had a fraught relationship with her mother. She filed a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/loreal-heiress-liliane-bettencourt-france-2011-10?IR=T">criminal complaint</a> against the elder Bettencourt's closest friend, accusing him of trying to manipulate the elderly heiress out of the family fortune.<br /> Unlike a typical billionaire heiress, Bettencourt Meyers has focused her attention on her career as an author and a member of L'Oreal's board of directors. </p> <div> <div class="slide">Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, 70, is the granddaughter of L'Oreal founder Eugene Schueller.French businesswoman and philanthropist Liliane Bettencourt, her husband politician Andre Bettencourt, and their daughter Françoise Bettencourt Meyers attend his welcome ceremony at the Academie Française in 1988. <p class="copyright">Pierre Vauthey/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images</p> <p>Schueller was a pharmacist by trade, who <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/loreal-founder-nazi-fascist-secret-society-2019-3">invented a new formula for hair dye</a> in 1908 that he called L'Oreal. The product made Schueller extremely wealthy. </p> <p>Bettencourt Meyers' mother, Liliane Bettencourt, inherited Schueller's entire fortune in 1957 and became a prominent socialite, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/francoise-bettencourt-meyers/">according to Bloomberg</a>. Bettencourt Meyers' father, André Bettencourt, was a French politician who served as a government minister and senator, <a href="https://time.com/4888142/never-envy-the-richest-woman-in-the-world/">Time reported</a>.</p> <p>The Bettencourts were well known in French society for their glamorous and exclusive parties. However, Bettencourt Meyers never indulged in the same glamorous lifestyle as her socialite parents. She preferred staying in to play the piano or write, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/09/what-the-death-of-the-worlds-richest-woman-means-bettencourt">Vanity Fair reported</a> in 2017.</p> </div> <div class="slide">Bettencourt Meyers had a fraught relationship with her mother.Liliane Bettencourt and her daughter Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers attend the Giorgio Armani Prive Haute-Couture Spring / Summer 2012 show as part of Paris Fashion Week at Grand Palais on January 24, 2012 in Paris, France. <p class="copyright">Pascal Le Segretain/WireImage</p> <p>The mother-daughter relationship turned stormy when Bettencourt Meyers was a teenager, according to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/09/what-the-death-of-the-worlds-richest-woman-means-bettencourt">Vanity Fair</a>.</p> <p>"Françoise was heavy and slow," Bettencourt once said according to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/09/what-the-death-of-the-worlds-richest-woman-means-bettencourt">Vanity Fair</a>, "always one lap behind me."</p> <p>Bettencourt also called Françoise "a cold child" in a 2009 interview with a French newspaper, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/fashion/23loreal.html">The New York Times</a>.</p> <p> </p> </div> <div class="slide">As an adult, Bettencourt Meyers chose to focus on her career as an author.Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers takes part in a book-signing session on August 28, 2011 in the French central city of Chanceaux-près-Loches as she participates in the 16th edition of "La Forêt des Livres" book fair. <p class="copyright">ALAIN JOCARD/AFP via Getty Images</p> <p><a href="https://time.com/4888142/never-envy-the-richest-woman-in-the-world/">Time's</a> Tom Sancton called Bettencourt Meyers a "serious-minded intellectual."</p> <p>The heiress has written books on topics ranging from Greek mythology to Jewish-Christian relations, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/francoise-bettencourt-meyers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomberg reports</a>. In 2008, she published a Biblical commentary entitled "Regard sur la Bible," and in 2020, she published a book about hearing and deafness, according to <a href="https://www.amazon.fr/Fran%C3%A7oise-Bettencourt-Meyers/e/B004MQNPGE/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">her Amazon page</a>. </p> </div> <div class="slide">Bettencourt Meyers also sits on L'Oreal's board and is the chairwoman of the family's holding company, Téthys.L'Oreal produces its own line cosmetics, in addition to Lancôme, Giorgio Armani,<br /> Yves Saint Laurent, Kiehl's, and Urban Decay. <p class="copyright">REUTERS/Eric Gaillard</p> <p>Bettencourt Meyers <a href="https://www.loreal.com/en/governance/board-of-directors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">serves on several board committees</a>, including strategy and sustainability, human resources, and nominations and governance. </p> <p> </p> </div> <div class="slide">Her relationship with her mother came to a tipping point when Bettencourt Meyers initiated a decade-long family feud over her inheritance known as "the Bettencourt Affair."Liliane Bettencourt and Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers in 2007. <p class="copyright">PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP via Getty Images</p> <p>In a lawsuit, Bettencourt Meyers alleged that her mother's closest friend, photographer François-Marie Banier, used his "platonic love affair" with Bettencourt to manipulate the elderly heiress into giving him approximately $1.86 billion worth of cash, art, and real estate, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/fashion/23loreal.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Times reported.</a> </p> <p>Bettencourt Meyers filed a criminal complaint against Banier in December 2007. Bettencourt disputed her daughter's assertion, saying she freely shared her assets with Banier, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/fashion/23loreal.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to The Times.</a> In a 2008 letter to Banier, Bettencourt described their relationship: "With you, I am like a mother, a lover, all the feelings pass through me. It makes me tremble," <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/09/what-the-death-of-the-worlds-richest-woman-means-bettencourt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vanity Fair reported</a>.</p> <p>Bettencourt Meyers told a French magazine <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/fashion/23loreal.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in 2009</a> that Banier's "objective is clear: break away my mother from our family to profit from her. I will not let it happen."</p> </div> <div class="slide">Bettencourt Meyers added nine other defendants to the case after a dramatic investigation that even involved then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy.Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers and her sons Nicolas, right, and Jean-Victor were the subjects of intense media scrutiny during the Bettencourt affair. <p class="copyright">JEAN-PIERRE MULLER/AFP via Getty Images</p> <p>It was reported that Bettencourt had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/liliane-bettencourt-billionaire-loreal-heiress-dies-at-94/2017/09/21/344028c2-9ef0-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dementia and Alzheimer's disease</a>, and that various people in her inner circle had used her confusion to take advantage of her financially. A former government official was accused of illegally receiving Bettencourt's money to fund Sarkozy's presidential campaign, though a case against the president was dropped due to lack of evidence.</p> <p>The case eventually went to trial, and in 2015, Bainer was convicted along with seven other defendants of "abus de faiblesse," or "abuse of weakness." He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison and forced to pay Bettencourt 158 million euros in damages. The jail sentence and payment were later reversed in an appeal, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/09/what-the-death-of-the-worlds-richest-woman-means-bettencourt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vanity Fair reported</a>. </p> </div> <div class="slide">The pair weren't on speaking terms after Bettencourt Meyers filed the criminal complaint in 2009.Liliane Bettencourt and Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers. <p class="copyright">AP Photo/Thibault Camus</p> <p>"I don't see my daughter anymore and I don't wish to," Bettencourt said in a 2008 interview. "For me, my daughter has become something inert."</p> <p>A lawyer involved in the case <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/09/what-the-death-of-the-worlds-richest-woman-means-bettencourt">told Vanity Fair</a>: "The mother massacred the daughter, then the daughter massacred the mother."</p> <p>In 2011, Bettencourt was placed <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-15334991" target="_blank" rel="noopener">under the guardianship of her family</a> due to concerns over her declining mental health. </p> </div> <div class="slide">The lawsuit also dredged up long-forgotten family secrets, including speculation that Bettencourt Meyer's father and grandfather were Nazi sympathizers.French politician Andre Bettencourt and Bettencourt-Meyers at a film premiere in 1988. <p class="copyright">James Andanson/Sygma via Getty Images</p> <p>Bettencourt Meyers' grandfather, Eugene Schueller, had publicly commended Adolf Hitler's "dynamism" in the early years of Nazi Germany and was investigated as a Nazi collaborator after World War II ended, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/loreal-founder-nazi-fascist-secret-society-2019-3">Insider previously reported.</a> </p> <p>Schueller was also a member of a secret society that plotted to overthrow France's republican government in the 1930s. The group, which was linked to multiple murders and bombings, was bankrolled by Schueller, who allowed its meetings to be hosted at L'Oréal's headquarters.</p> <p>André Bettencourt, Bettencourt Meyers' father, wrote anti-Semitic diatribes for the pro-German press in the early 1940s, <a href="https://time.com/4888142/never-envy-the-richest-woman-in-the-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Time reported</a>, though he switched his allegiances and joined the Resistance. He was later <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/world/europe/liliane-bettencourt-dead-loreal.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decorated for his military service</a> during World War II and went on to serve in the French government. </p> </div> <div class="slide">Even though she was on the winning side of the lawsuit, Bettencourt Meyers was later investigated over allegations that she had bribed a witness.Bettencourt Meyers. <p class="copyright">Antoine Gyori/Corbis via Getty Images</p> <p>The investigation stemmed from a criminal complaint filed by Bainer in 2015. At the time, Bettencourt Meyers said the payment she made to the witness was part severance payment, part personal loan, and not a bribe for the testimony.</p> <p>That suit and Bettencourt Meyers' countersuit against Bainer were resolved in a secret deal in 2016, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/09/what-the-death-of-the-worlds-richest-woman-means-bettencourt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to Vanity Fair</a>. </p> </div> <div class="slide">Bettencourt Meyers inherited tens of billions of dollars when her mother died in 2017, and valuable assets like this mansion in the suburbs of Paris.This 2010 photo shows a house belonging to Françoise Bettencourt Meyers located in the Saint-James neighborhood near Paris. <p class="copyright">SAMIR TOLBA/AFP via Getty Images</p> <p>The house is located in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy suburb west of Paris. Neuilly-sur-Seine is known in France as "power suburb, a place not only of wealth but influence," according to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-parisian-suburb-where-presidents-are-made-7648308.html">The Independent</a>. </p> <p>The Art deco mansion is where Bettencourt spent her final days, <a href="https://time.com/4888142/never-envy-the-richest-woman-in-the-world/">Time reported.</a></p> <p> </p> </div> <div class="slide">She also inherited this mansion overlooking France's Brittany coast.Bettencourt's vacation home in Arcouest headland, western France. <p class="copyright">THOMAS BREGARDIS/AFP via Getty Images</p> <p>The mansion was one of Bettencourt's childhood homes, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/world/europe/liliane-bettencourt-dead-loreal.html">The New York Times reported.</a></p> </div> <div class="slide">Bettencourt Meyers lived in this home in Paris' western suburbs, not far from where her mother lived.A Neuilly-sur-Seine home where Bettencourt Meyers lived in July 2010. <p class="copyright">BORIS HORVAT/AFP via Getty Images</p> <p>French police searched this home in 2010 as a part of the investigations surrounding the Bettencourt affair, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-28/french-police-search-home-of-l-oreal-heiress-bettencourt-s-daughter">Bloomberg reported</a> at the time. </p> </div> <div class="slide">Bettencourt Meyers is married to Jean-Pierre Meyers, who now serves as the CEO of the family's holding company, Téthys.From left to right, Jean-Victor Meyers, Nicolas Meyers, Bettencourt Meyers, and Jean-Pierre Meyers at a 2019 L'Oreal event in Paris, France. <p class="copyright">Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images for Fondation L'Oreal</p> <p>The couple has two adult sons, Jean-Victor and Nicolas, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/francoise-bettencourt-meyers/">according to Bloomberg</a>. Jean-Victor began serving on L'Oreal's board alongside Bettencourt Meyers, replacing his grandmother, in 2012.</p> </div> <div class="slide">In the years since the controversy surrounding her family, Bettencourt Meyers' fortune has grown exponentially.Françoise Bettencourt Meyers in 2010. <p class="copyright">MARTIN BUREAU/AFP via Getty Images</p> <p>Bettencourt Meyers is worth $82.1 billion, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/francoise-bettencourt-meyers/">Bloomberg estimates,</a> making her the world's wealthiest woman and the 11th-richest person in the world. </p> <p>She and her family control 33% of L'Oréal, which remains the world's largest cosmetics maker. The company owns mass-market drugstore brands like Maybelline, Essie, Garnier, and, of course, L'Oréal, as well as high-end beauty companies like Urban Decay, Lancôme, and Kiehl's. L'Oréal also licenses the beauty divisions of luxury fashion houses like Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino. </p> </div> <div class="slide">Bettencourt Meyers has dedicated some of her billions to philanthropy.Bettencourt Meyers in Paris in October 2011. <p class="copyright">FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP via Getty Images</p> <p>Bettencourt Meyers was among the French billionaires who pledged money after <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/notre-dame-cathedral-paris-fire-2019-4">Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire</a> in April 2019. She <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-pledged-money-to-rebuild-notre-dame-fire-paris-2019-4">pledged to give $226 million</a> to repair the Parisian church.</p> <p>Bettencourt Meyers is also the president of the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, the charity she cofounded in the 1980s. The foundation issues grants to support research in the life sciences and arts projects, <a href="https://www.fondationbs.org/en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to its website</a>. </p> <p><em>Taylor Nicole Rogers contributed to an earlier version of this article. </em></p> </div> </div> <div class="read-original">Read the original article on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/loreal-heiress-francoise-bettencourt-meyers-richest-woman-in-the-world-2020-1">Business Insider</a></div><!-- /wp:html -->

Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, the world’s richest woman and heiress to the L’Oréal fortune.

Françoise Bettencourt Meyers inherited one-third of L’Oreal from her mother in 2017, making her the richest woman in the world with a net worth of $82.1 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Bettencourt Meyers had a fraught relationship with her mother. She filed a criminal complaint against the elder Bettencourt’s closest friend, accusing him of trying to manipulate the elderly heiress out of the family fortune.
Unlike a typical billionaire heiress, Bettencourt Meyers has focused her attention on her career as an author and a member of L’Oreal’s board of directors. 

Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, 70, is the granddaughter of L’Oreal founder Eugene Schueller.French businesswoman and philanthropist Liliane Bettencourt, her husband politician Andre Bettencourt, and their daughter Françoise Bettencourt Meyers attend his welcome ceremony at the Academie Française in 1988.

Schueller was a pharmacist by trade, who invented a new formula for hair dye in 1908 that he called L’Oreal. The product made Schueller extremely wealthy. 

Bettencourt Meyers’ mother, Liliane Bettencourt, inherited Schueller’s entire fortune in 1957 and became a prominent socialite, according to Bloomberg. Bettencourt Meyers’ father, André Bettencourt, was a French politician who served as a government minister and senator, Time reported.

The Bettencourts were well known in French society for their glamorous and exclusive parties. However, Bettencourt Meyers never indulged in the same glamorous lifestyle as her socialite parents. She preferred staying in to play the piano or write, Vanity Fair reported in 2017.

Bettencourt Meyers had a fraught relationship with her mother.Liliane Bettencourt and her daughter Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers attend the Giorgio Armani Prive Haute-Couture Spring / Summer 2012 show as part of Paris Fashion Week at Grand Palais on January 24, 2012 in Paris, France.

The mother-daughter relationship turned stormy when Bettencourt Meyers was a teenager, according to Vanity Fair.

“Françoise was heavy and slow,” Bettencourt once said according to Vanity Fair, “always one lap behind me.”

Bettencourt also called Françoise “a cold child” in a 2009 interview with a French newspaper, according to The New York Times.

 

As an adult, Bettencourt Meyers chose to focus on her career as an author.Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers takes part in a book-signing session on August 28, 2011 in the French central city of Chanceaux-près-Loches as she participates in the 16th edition of “La Forêt des Livres” book fair.

Time’s Tom Sancton called Bettencourt Meyers a “serious-minded intellectual.”

The heiress has written books on topics ranging from Greek mythology to Jewish-Christian relations, Bloomberg reports. In 2008, she published a Biblical commentary entitled “Regard sur la Bible,” and in 2020, she published a book about hearing and deafness, according to her Amazon page

Bettencourt Meyers also sits on L’Oreal’s board and is the chairwoman of the family’s holding company, Téthys.L’Oreal produces its own line cosmetics, in addition to Lancôme, Giorgio Armani,
Yves Saint Laurent, Kiehl’s, and Urban Decay.

Bettencourt Meyers serves on several board committees, including strategy and sustainability, human resources, and nominations and governance. 

 

Her relationship with her mother came to a tipping point when Bettencourt Meyers initiated a decade-long family feud over her inheritance known as “the Bettencourt Affair.”Liliane Bettencourt and Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers in 2007.

In a lawsuit, Bettencourt Meyers alleged that her mother’s closest friend, photographer François-Marie Banier, used his “platonic love affair” with Bettencourt to manipulate the elderly heiress into giving him approximately $1.86 billion worth of cash, art, and real estate, The New York Times reported. 

Bettencourt Meyers filed a criminal complaint against Banier in December 2007. Bettencourt disputed her daughter’s assertion, saying she freely shared her assets with Banier, according to The Times. In a 2008 letter to Banier, Bettencourt described their relationship: “With you, I am like a mother, a lover, all the feelings pass through me. It makes me tremble,” Vanity Fair reported.

Bettencourt Meyers told a French magazine in 2009 that Banier’s “objective is clear: break away my mother from our family to profit from her. I will not let it happen.”

Bettencourt Meyers added nine other defendants to the case after a dramatic investigation that even involved then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy.Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers and her sons Nicolas, right, and Jean-Victor were the subjects of intense media scrutiny during the Bettencourt affair.

It was reported that Bettencourt had dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and that various people in her inner circle had used her confusion to take advantage of her financially. A former government official was accused of illegally receiving Bettencourt’s money to fund Sarkozy’s presidential campaign, though a case against the president was dropped due to lack of evidence.

The case eventually went to trial, and in 2015, Bainer was convicted along with seven other defendants of “abus de faiblesse,” or “abuse of weakness.” He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison and forced to pay Bettencourt 158 million euros in damages. The jail sentence and payment were later reversed in an appeal, Vanity Fair reported

The pair weren’t on speaking terms after Bettencourt Meyers filed the criminal complaint in 2009.Liliane Bettencourt and Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers.

“I don’t see my daughter anymore and I don’t wish to,” Bettencourt said in a 2008 interview. “For me, my daughter has become something inert.”

A lawyer involved in the case told Vanity Fair: “The mother massacred the daughter, then the daughter massacred the mother.”

In 2011, Bettencourt was placed under the guardianship of her family due to concerns over her declining mental health. 

The lawsuit also dredged up long-forgotten family secrets, including speculation that Bettencourt Meyer’s father and grandfather were Nazi sympathizers.French politician Andre Bettencourt and Bettencourt-Meyers at a film premiere in 1988.

Bettencourt Meyers’ grandfather, Eugene Schueller, had publicly commended Adolf Hitler’s “dynamism” in the early years of Nazi Germany and was investigated as a Nazi collaborator after World War II ended, Insider previously reported. 

Schueller was also a member of a secret society that plotted to overthrow France’s republican government in the 1930s. The group, which was linked to multiple murders and bombings, was bankrolled by Schueller, who allowed its meetings to be hosted at L’Oréal’s headquarters.

André Bettencourt, Bettencourt Meyers’ father, wrote anti-Semitic diatribes for the pro-German press in the early 1940s, Time reported, though he switched his allegiances and joined the Resistance. He was later decorated for his military service during World War II and went on to serve in the French government. 

Even though she was on the winning side of the lawsuit, Bettencourt Meyers was later investigated over allegations that she had bribed a witness.Bettencourt Meyers.

The investigation stemmed from a criminal complaint filed by Bainer in 2015. At the time, Bettencourt Meyers said the payment she made to the witness was part severance payment, part personal loan, and not a bribe for the testimony.

That suit and Bettencourt Meyers’ countersuit against Bainer were resolved in a secret deal in 2016, according to Vanity Fair

Bettencourt Meyers inherited tens of billions of dollars when her mother died in 2017, and valuable assets like this mansion in the suburbs of Paris.This 2010 photo shows a house belonging to Françoise Bettencourt Meyers located in the Saint-James neighborhood near Paris.

The house is located in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy suburb west of Paris. Neuilly-sur-Seine is known in France as “power suburb, a place not only of wealth but influence,” according to The Independent

The Art deco mansion is where Bettencourt spent her final days, Time reported.

 

She also inherited this mansion overlooking France’s Brittany coast.Bettencourt’s vacation home in Arcouest headland, western France.

The mansion was one of Bettencourt’s childhood homes, The New York Times reported.

Bettencourt Meyers lived in this home in Paris’ western suburbs, not far from where her mother lived.A Neuilly-sur-Seine home where Bettencourt Meyers lived in July 2010.

French police searched this home in 2010 as a part of the investigations surrounding the Bettencourt affair, Bloomberg reported at the time. 

Bettencourt Meyers is married to Jean-Pierre Meyers, who now serves as the CEO of the family’s holding company, Téthys.From left to right, Jean-Victor Meyers, Nicolas Meyers, Bettencourt Meyers, and Jean-Pierre Meyers at a 2019 L’Oreal event in Paris, France.

The couple has two adult sons, Jean-Victor and Nicolas, according to Bloomberg. Jean-Victor began serving on L’Oreal’s board alongside Bettencourt Meyers, replacing his grandmother, in 2012.

In the years since the controversy surrounding her family, Bettencourt Meyers’ fortune has grown exponentially.Françoise Bettencourt Meyers in 2010.

Bettencourt Meyers is worth $82.1 billion, Bloomberg estimates, making her the world’s wealthiest woman and the 11th-richest person in the world. 

She and her family control 33% of L’Oréal, which remains the world’s largest cosmetics maker. The company owns mass-market drugstore brands like Maybelline, Essie, Garnier, and, of course, L’Oréal, as well as high-end beauty companies like Urban Decay, Lancôme, and Kiehl’s. L’Oréal also licenses the beauty divisions of luxury fashion houses like Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino. 

Bettencourt Meyers has dedicated some of her billions to philanthropy.Bettencourt Meyers in Paris in October 2011.

Bettencourt Meyers was among the French billionaires who pledged money after Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire in April 2019. She pledged to give $226 million to repair the Parisian church.

Bettencourt Meyers is also the president of the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, the charity she cofounded in the 1980s. The foundation issues grants to support research in the life sciences and arts projects, according to its website

Taylor Nicole Rogers contributed to an earlier version of this article. 

Read the original article on Business Insider

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