Liliane Bettencourt

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Matriarch of the L’Oréal empire.

© Frederic REGLAIN—Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

Liliane Bettencourt was a French business executive and heiress to the L’Oréal cosmetics fortune.

Liliane’s mother, a pianist, died when Liliane was five years old. Her father, Eugène Schueller, was a chemist who in 1907 invented and began selling a line of synthetic hair dyes. The company was eventually expanded to include cosmetics, and, by the time Liliane began working for the family business as an apprentice at age 15, L’Oréal products were available for consumers in some 17 countries. In 1950 she married André Bettencourt, who later became a politician.

After her father’s death in 1957, Liliane Bettencourt’s inheritance made her the largest individual shareholder of L’Oréal S.A. The company went on to expand beyond the L’Oréal brand by acquiring the luxury beauty brand Lancôme, the American cosmetics company Helena Rubinstein, and dozens of other cosmetics and skin care brands such as Garnier, Maybelline, and Redken, growing her wealth and making her one of the richest women in the world. In 1987 she and her family established the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller, a charity organization devoted to humanitarian, medical, and cultural initiatives. In 1995 she joined L’Oréal’s board of directors.

Bettencourt, who had famously shied away from media attention throughout her life, became embroiled in a high-profile scandal in 2007. Her only daughter, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, sued celebrity photographer François-Marie Banier, accusing him of exploiting her mother’s frailty, after it was revealed that he had received an estimated €1 billion in cash and gifts from Bettencourt. The dispute escalated until mother and daughter reconciled in 2010; Bettencourt was ultimately placed under the legal guardianship of her family.

Meanwhile, secret tapes that came to light during the dispute implicated Bettencourt in a tax-evasion scheme and eventually entangled the highest reaches of French government. Labour minister Eric Woerth was forced out in 2010 and placed under investigation in 2012 after he was accused of having accepted illegal campaign donations from Bettencourt on behalf of former prime minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s election campaign. Sarkozy himself was accused of exploiting Bettencourt’s frailty and having accepted millions of euros in illegal campaign donations from her. A formal investigation into his role in the scandal was opened in March 2013.